
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


UQUU1?73 1: \&? 







A Tale of California Life 
for Girls 


Works of 

Pauline Bradford Mackie 

& 

Mademoiselle de Berny 

A Story of Valley Forge 

Ye Lyttle Salem Maide 

A Story of Witchcraft 

A Georgian Actress 
The Washingtonians 

£ 

L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 
200 Summer Street, Boston, Mass. 






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MB I H v m Ml 









































































“CYNTHY WAS LYING LISTLESSLY ON HER PILLOW” 

{See page 234) 




The Story of Kate 

A Tale of California Life for Girls /*? 


By 

PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE tf 

(Mrs. Herbert MUller Hopkins) 

Author of “ Mademoiselle de Berny “ Ye Lyttle Salem 
Maide? “ A Georgian Actress ” “ The Washingtonians? etc. 


Illustrated by 

L. J. BRIDGMAN 



BOSTON ? L. C. PAGE 
6- COMPANY ? MDCCCCIII 







“the library of 

CONGRESS, 

Two CffPtts R '.skived 

OCT, 1 U 1902 

fJriPVRIOMT ENTRY 

Of.ASS ^ XXo. No. 

U- W o n 

cor*v b. 

ir- — — ■■ — 



Copyright , 790.2 
By L. C. Page & Company 

(incorporated) 

All rights reserved 


c « c e 

c « 

< C 4 * 
C € 

• • • • 


• • • 

Published, October, 1902 



Colonfal ^rraa 

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Slmonds & Co. 
Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 


TO 


Ctott!) Collet 

WHO BEST KNOWS KATE’S GOOD POINTS 
THIS STORY 

IS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED 


I 






















Contents 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Coming of the Rains . . . . 13 

II. A Guest from the Far North . . .31 

III. Kate’s Sacrifice . . ' . . . .5 o 

IV. All Night at “ Higgins’s ” . . . .70 

V. “ Rose May Smith — Milliner ” . . .90 

VI. Kate Proves Herself a Disciplinarian . no 

VII. In Which the Two Girls Have a Terrible 

Fright 128 

VIII. Kate Decides to Become an Artist. . 143 

IX. Dickens in Green Hollow . . . .162 

X. Kate’s Ship Comes In 176 

XI. A Barn Studio 195 

XII. In San Francisco 213 

XIII. Cynthy 230 

XIV. A Midnight Errand 245 

XV. Mr. Hitchcock and Rose May . . . 256 



List of Illustrations 


4 

PAGE 

“ Cynthy was lying listlessly on her pillow ” 

(See Page 234) ..... Frontispiece 

“Kate sat on the porch step” .... 13 

“‘Going for a constitutional?’ called Mrs. 

Higgins, cheerfully ” 86 

“ But Kate’s arms went just as tight around 

her” 192 





























“KATE SAT ON THE PORCH STEP 



The Story of Kate 


CHAPTER I. 

The Coming of the Rains 

Kate sat on the porch step, her hands clasped 
about her knee, as she gazed fixedly off toward the 
mountains. 

John, the old family cat, lay panting at her feet. 
Every little while he would rise and try to dig a 
fresh hole in the baked earth at the foot of the 
rose- vines. 

Kate gave him a push with her foot. “ Stop dig- 
ging at those roses,” she said crossly. 

The north wind was blowing. It was a desert 
wind, and had an electrical quality which withered 
the roses and the heliotrope twining about the 

veranda, and curled up the delicate, fern-like foliage 
13 


*4 


The Story of Kate 


of the pepper-trees. The six eucalyptus-trees planted 
in front of the house along the roadway suffered 
least from the drought, for their roots ran deep and 
far under the earth until they found water. Still, 
their drooping, cimeter-shaped leaves were white 
with dust, and rustled dryly like paper in the howling- 
wind. This always puzzled Kate’s mother, who 
was a New England woman, and who could not 
reconcile herself to a wind which blew so lustily in 
a bright blue sky, and moaned down the chimney 
and rattled the casements. “ At home such a wind 
would be a storm-breeder,” she would say, “ but here 
it will blow for a week; then stop as suddenly as 
it began, without a drop of rain.” 

Kate’s own lips and skin were parched as the 
flowers, and she felt as though her lids creaked 
when she closed her eyes. 

The sun was low, but the sky was still as burning 
blue as at noon, the swirls of dust as white. Yet 
the mountains were beginning to look a shade less 
red, and to take on a gauze of purple. How terri- 
ble they were, those mountains, so barren, so heated- 
looking, and yet topped by snow! 


The Coming of the Rains 15 

And still Kate, even as she sat there looking at 
them with such dislike, unable to cry for the hot 
wind that scorched her smarting eyes, in all her 
discomfort, saw that the mountains were beautiful 
with a strange beauty that no familiarity would ever 
make seem quite real. 

This was her nineteenth birthday, and she had 
never before been so unhappy. There had been a 
prolonged drought. For the last two years there 
had been scant rain in California, and so far this 
year there had been none. This condition brought 
anxiety to all. To Kate it meant a great disappoint- 
ment. There would be no money for her to return 
to the university. 

The State university was situated at Berkeley, just 
across the bay from San Francisco. It was a coedu- 
cational institution, and the sturdy daughter or 
daughters of many a struggling ranchman went to 
college with the son as a matter of course. Cali- 
fornia, at the extreme west, is as ardent an advo- 
cate of public education as the New England States, 
and the public schools are examined by the State 
university authorities, so that every young person, 


1 6 The Story of Kate 

ambitious to teach, feels that the gateway to the pro- 
fession lies through the State university. 

The first year, when Kate was a freshman, she 
had supported herself by being a waitress at a 
student boarding-house ; but her strength had given 
out, and her father had refused to allow her to go 
back until he could afford to pay her board. So 
she had remained out this last year, and now she 
could not go back the coming year either. 

“ There never will be any money in this house,” 
she murmured, bitterly. “ There never was, and 
there never will be. Father’s no manager.” 

The sun sank behind the mountains. The sky took 
on a deeper shade of blue, and the earth seemed 
cooler now that the glare was gone. 

Sat Chung came around the side of the house 
with a small pitcher of water. When he saw Kate 
he paused, and looked abashed. 

“What are you going to do with that water?” 
she demanded, imperiously. 

Sat Chung maintained a guilty silence. 

“ You were going to water the roses,” said she, 
nodding at him. “ I know.” 


The Coming of the Rains 17 

Still Sat Chur^ made no reply, but stared off at 
the red-purple mountains. 

He, too, looked forlorn, thought Kate, frowning 
at him. Dust showed white on his blue-bloused 
figure and his long black queue. His unhappy yellow 
face was pitted by smallpox ; his thin fingers clutched 
the pitcher. He knew that his beautiful roses were 
dying for lack of a few drops of water, and yet he 
dared not save them for fear of Missee Kate. 

Sat Chung had worshipped her since she was 
born, after he had recovered from the first shock 
of disappointment that the baby had not proved to 
be a boy. When a baby, she began to tyrannise 
over him, and now she was beginning to be more 
and more like her mother. It was Kate’s mother 
who years ago, when he had been impertinent to her, 
had seized him by the collar, and taken the broom- 
stick to him. After that experience he had always 
been able to understand why it was that American 
men granted their wives so many privileges. 

“ I do believe you’ve been watering those roses 
right along, and that’s why John digs there,” cried 
Kate. “ He’s found out it’s coolest there. I should 


i8 


The Story of Kate 


think you’d be ashamed of yourfcelf, Chung, when 
we have to be so careful of every drop of water, 
and when you know father has gone to town to 
sell the cattle for what he can get before they die 
on our hands.” 

Sat Chung hung his head. Every evening, out of 
their scanty store, he had watered the roses and 
heliotrope secretly. This time he had supposed 
Missee Kate in the house with her mother. He 
turned to go back to the kitchen. His meek, woe- 
begone face sent a pang through Kate’s heart. 
After all, poor old Chung did not have a very good 
time. 

“ Chung,” she said, imperiously, “ give me that 
pitcher.” 

He handed it to her timidly, vague memories of 
the broomstick rising in him. Missee Kate was 
very like her mother. 

Kate snatched the pitcher and tossed the water 
on the roses. Then in sudden passion she flung 
the pitcher down on the ground. 

“ There, Chung, I hope you’re satisfied now,” she 
cried, 


The Coming of the Rains 19 

She watched him with her gray eyes sparkling, as 
he bent his stiff, patient back to pick up the frag- 
ments. 

John was rolling ecstatically around on the patch 
of wet earth. 

Kate covered her face with her hands, and cried 
as if her heart would break. She had been unhappy, 
and now she was ashamed of her ebullition of 
temper. 

She wept until, for sheer lack of strength, she 
had to pause. At last she took away her hands 
and looked up. 

The sun was now fairly set, but in the peculiar 
afterglow the mountains seemed more vivid and 
nearer than ever. The tops of the dry, rustling 
eucalyptus-trees caught the bright reflection. 

She drew a long breath, her mouth still quivering, 
her gray eyes swollen. But the exhaustion from - 
crying brought a certain relief. 

Sat Chung stood with his back toward her. John 
was beside him, and they were both looking south. 

Kate could see the old cat’s face. He was licking 
his whiskers, and his green eyes shone bright, almost 


20 


The Story of Kate 


as if he were going mad. And how strange Chung 
seemed, standing as motionless as if he were a 
statue! She was about to speak when she felt the 
air blow back the curls on her forehead. How soft 
it was, how cool ! 

She sprang to her feet with a cry. 

“ Mother! mother! ” she called. 

She ran into the house and through the hall into 
the kitchen. 

Her mother sat in a rocking-chair by the window 
in the large, comfortable room. She looked up from 
her sewing. 

“Well, dearie, is father coming ? ” she asked. 

Kate stood in the doorway, her girlish figure out- 
lined against the square of blue sky at the further 
end of the long hall. Her hair was blown about her 
face, as she stood there laughing. 

“ Don't you know, mother,” she cried, joyously, 
“ don't you feel it ? ” 

Mrs. Whitney half rose. Then as the draught of 
air that tossed Kate’s curls so wildly blew full in 
her own face, she paled, and sank back into the chair. 

“ If your father had only waited,” she said; “ I 


The Coming of the Rains 21 

wanted him to wait another day before selling the 
cattle.” 

Kate was dancing about the kitchen with excite- 
ment. “ It’s from the south ! It’s from the south ! 
The wind has changed at last. Oh, mother, dearest, 
I told you some good luck would happen on my 
birthday.” 

They went out and sat down on the kitchen stoop, 
side by side, their hands clasped in each other’s. 

Soft and sweet, damp with a suggestion of rain, 
freighted with hope, the blessed south wind blew in 
their faces. 

“ It changed all in a minute, mjother dear,” Kate’s 
eager voice went on ; “ the storm will be here before 
morning. I just felt God couldn’t be so cruel on 
my birthday.” 

“ How I wish your father had waited,” sighed 
Mrs. Whitney. 

Kate drew her hand away impatiently. How 
could her mother be so depressing when the rains 
were coming at last, after all their prayers? Why 
think about the cattle now? But as she glanced at 
the anxious face beside her, her mood softened, and 


22 


The Story of Kate 


she slipped her slender fingers back into the aproned 
lap, and clasped her mother’s hand again. 

“ Well,” said Mrs. Whitney, comforted by the 
loving pressure, “ we must remember it isn’t as 
bad as it might be. Your father said he would sell 
only half the herd. We mustn’t let him get dis- 
couraged, but cheer him up all we can.” 

“ And then there are the crops all saved,” put in 
Kate, cheerily. “ Oh, look at Chung going across 
the fields there with his bucket. He knows he can 
water his roses now. And if there isn’t old John 
trotting after him as spry as a kitten ! ” 

They sat there some time longer before they went 
in to get supper. During harvesting time Chung 
did the cooking, but when only the family was there, 
he helped Colonel Whitney about the farm, and 
Mrs. Whitney and Kate prepared the meals. 

What fun the two had this evening, as they bustled 
around and stirred the fire and set the table ! 

“ Just to think that I can go back to college, after 
all,” cried Kate, gleefully, as she lopped off some 
of the bread dough to make the raised biscuit. “ I 


The Coming of the Rains 23 

believe I’ll just whip an egg into this, and put in 
some currants and an extra bit of shortening.” 

While the biscuits were rising, she set the table 
with the turkey red supper-cloth. They never used 
the original dining-room, but kept it for a back 
parlour. 

“ I wish we had some flowers for the centre of the 
table,” she said, regretfully. Then suddenly she 
began to take the dishes off again. “ I’m going to 
put on the white table-cloth, because it’s my birthday, 
and the rains are coming.” 

“ I hope they’re not coming in to supper with 
us,” rejoined Mrs. Whitney, with the twinkle in her 
eyes that Kate loved to see. “ I hate to see you put 
on that best table-cloth, dearie. It’s the last mother’s 
got.” 

“ I want it,” said Kate, with a wilful nod of her 
pretty head, as she dragged out the table. Usually 
they sat around the three sides, with the fourth 
side pushed up against the wall. “ It seems cozier 
pulled out, and father will like it nearer the stove,” 
she added, “ for it’s going to be a damp evening, I 


24 


The Story of Kate 


At this last remark they both laughed. It was 
so delightful to think of a damp evening. The 
phrase implied a delicious joke. 

“ We’ll have sliced ham and tea and some pre- 
serves. Your father’s fond of those yellow peaches,” 
said Mrs. Whitney, as she stood at the door looking 
across the fields to the road. “ I thought I saw 
him a minute ago, but it was a swirl of dust.” 

Kate took the key, and went out to the cellar. 
It was a dugout under the shed, and as she went 
down the few steps she thought how nice the shining 
glass jars of fruit looked. They were all neatly 
labelled in her own handwriting. A few, however, 
had the fruit itself drawn in pen and ink on the slip 
of white paper and pasted on. 

“ Such foolishness,” Mrs. Whitney had said, a 
little annoyed, if amused. She was always afraid 
Kate had inherited an impractical streak from her 
father’s family. 

Kate reached up now for a golden-looking jar on 
which was an especially elaborate drawing of a twig 
weighted with three peaches. 


The Coming of the Rains 25 

“ I guess I’ll have to take up some piccalilli, too,” 
she said, aloud. “ I love it with cold ham.” 

As she turned to go over to the big stone pickle 
jars, she saw a big cake carefully pushed back on 
the shelf. Chung had made her a birthday cake. 
He had never failed to do so, but this time she had 
forgotten the custom in her anxiety about the rain. 
There it was, soft and fresh, covered with pink 
icing, ornamented with an elaborate scroll work in 
the white frosting, and having “ Kat ” written on it 
in chocolate letters. For Chung knew English 
imperfectly, and never could remember to put the 
“ e ” on his little mistress’s name. 

“ I’m never quite sure whether he means John 
or me by that,” thought Kate, smiling, “ for he 
always spells cat just the same, k-a-t” And she 
felt a fresh pang of shame, as she thought of her 
anger with Chung in the afternoon and the broken 
pitcher. “ I’m never going to be mad with him 
again,” she promised herself. She wished she might 
eat a bit of the cake that very minute. She knew 
it had the peculiar Chinese flavour Chung always put 


26 The Story of Kate 

into a birthday cake, and which she was never quite 
sure that she liked. 

It was after eight before Colonel Whitney 
came home. They saw he was depressed, and from 
that guessed he had sold the cattle. He was a tall 
man, but he walked with a slight limp. He had 
been injured when a soldier in the Civil War. There 
were crow’s-feet about his kindly blue eyes, the deep 
wrinkles that come from living in a land of sunshine. 
He was barely middle-aged, but he looked older, and 
was quite gray. 

The cheerful greetings of his wife and daughter, 
the cosy supper, the birthday cake and white table- 
cloth imparting such an appearance of festivity to 
the homely meal, all put fresh heart in him. He 
had brought a present home to Kate for her birth- 
day, a gift his wife had suggested. It was an 
English-French dictionary, a very stout little book 
bound in black, which Kate had long desired. “ It 
was the only one they had in Green Hollow,” he 
said, “ so I was lucky to get it. And this bottle 
of perfumery is from father, Katsy. I knew my 
girl would like something pretty.” 


The Coming of the Rains 27 

“ I declare, mother,” he added, passing up his cup 
and saucer for a second pouring of tea, “ nothing 
rests me like a cup of your good tea when I’m fagged 
out. After all, Annie, it isn’t as if I had sold the 
whole herd, and I got a good price, considering, 
on the cattle I did let go. At least enough to start 
our girl off on her notions of higher education, I 
guess. She’s already telling us what we don’t know, 
eh, mother ? ” He rose to get his pipe, and pinched 
Kate’s cheek as he passed her chair. 

Kate dimpled and blushed. 

Colonel Whitney had never taken his daughter’s 
college education very seriously, but he gave way 
to his wife. He had an old-fashioned notion that 
girls learned enough staying at home with their 
mothers. It would have been different had Kate 
been a boy, he used to say. He limped over to 
the stove now and drew up his favourite chair, and, 
opening the oven door, rested his foot on the ledge 
to get the heat. 

“ I declare,” he remarked, with a sly wink, “ if 
these damp evenings don’t always give me a twinge 
of rheumatism in this pesky leg.” He smiled indul- 


28 


The Story of Kate 


gently at his daughter, who was untying the bit of 
thin white silk ribbon which tied securely the glass 
stopper of the bottle. He had paid four bits for it, 
which, in California parlance, meant fifty cents. The 
bottle had the picture of a white rose pasted on it 
and was very pretty. “ Perhaps you’d have liked a 
ribbon better, Katsy,” he ventured. 

“ No, indeed,” she said, smiling. 

Not until Chung had cleared off the table and 
was eating his own supper in the little laundry off 
the kitchen did she proceed to the ceremony of cut- 
ting the birthday cake. 

Her mother must have the first piece, and then the 
second was carried to her father, and even old John 
was given a little bit. 

Mrs. Whitney drew the lamp near her and re- 
sumed her sewing. It was a blue dimity dress for 
Kate, and was trimmed with narrow white lace and 
black velvet ribbon. Now and then, as she sewed, 
she paused to eat a bit of the slice her daughter had 
put on a plate beside her. 

“ Chung does make good cake,” she said, smiling, 
“ but how I should like it if he had only flavoured 


The Coming of the Rains 29 

it with good plain vanilla ! I suppose it sounds silly, 
but I never feel quite Christian-like eating cake with 
this queer Chinese taste.” 

“ I know it, mother,” cried Kate, “ you’re like 
me. You just keep on eating and eating it, to find 
out if you really do like it. And the first thing you 
know the cake’s all gone, and you can’t tell whether 
you did like it or not.” 

“ I shouldn’t mind a bit having company this 
evening,” Mrs. Whitney went on. “ Thread this 
needle for mother, dearie. Where I used to live in 
Vermont State we were great people for neighbour- 
ing. The farms weren’t so far apart.” 

“ I stopped at Green Hollow,” said the Colonel, 
“ and I ran across old man Schluter. He said the 
rains would decide them to open the district school, 
and spoke as if you could have it, if you were set on 
it, Katsy.” 

“ Thank him very much, but I don’t want it,” 
she answered, with a spirited toss of her curls. “ I’m 
going back to college.” 

“ I thought I heard a step,” interposed Mrs, 
Whitney. 


30 The Story of Kate 

“ Mother is that set on having company she’s 
going to imagine some,” joked Colonel Whitney. 

“ Well, I did,” insisted Mrs .Whitney, not shaken 
in her opinion by her husband’s and daughter’s 
laughter, “ I certainly did.” 

As she spoke the last word, there came a sturdy 
knocking on the half-open door. 


CHAPTER II. 

A Guest from the Far North 

For a moment the three stared at one another 
in wonder. 

“ The idea of our keeping anybody waiting so,” 
cried Kate, at last, running to the door and opening 
it. “ I declare we ought to be ashamed of our- 
selves.” 

“Not a bit of it,” rejoined a hearty voice, as she 
flung wide the door. “For all you know I might 
be a tramp, and I haven’t noticed a dog around. 
Most ranches keep a dog.” 

The speaker stepped into the room, and stood, a 
strange, bold figure, staring genially about him. 

John rose from his place by the stove and arched 
his back, his green eyes glaring, as he spit at the 
newcomer. 

“ Pretty pussy, pretty pussy,” said the man. “ I’d 


3 1 


32 


The Story of Kate 


like to wring your neck, you devil. I hate a cat. 
There’s his master. I’ll be bound,” he added, as he 
caught sight of Chung’s yellow face peering around 
the laundry door. “ See a cat in this country and 
there’s bound to be a China boy not far off. See a 
China boy, it follows there’s a cat about. Only 
thing I got against them,. I like them better than I 
do the Irish.” 

“ I was clean forgetting my manners,” said 
Colonel Whitney, rising and going forward to shake 
hands with the unexpected guest, “ but I was quite 
taken back on seeing you. You see we had just been 
laughing at mother here, because she thought she 
heard a step, and then if there didn’t come your 
knock right on top of it.” 

“ I hope I didn’t startle you, madam,” said the 
stranger, bowing to both Mrs. Whitney and Kate. 
Then he turned again to the Colonel. “ My name is 
Hitchcock. English name, English born. I take 
it you’re a Yankee.” 

“ Yes, sir,” answered the Colonel, grinning, “ pure 
Connecticut nutmeg. Take a chair, sir, take a 
chair.” 


A Guest from the Far North 33 

“ I will, thank you,” answered Mr. Hitchcock. 
“ I’ve been in the saddle all day, and I’m pretty 
well fagged. Could you take me in for the night? 
I suppose that China boy of yours can attend to 
my horse, can’t he ? ” 

Kate laughed. “ Chung’s afraid of a strange 
horse. I’ll go.” 

“ No, indeed,” cried Mr. Hitchcock, rising hastily, 
“ you just show me the barn.” 

“ Now you just sit right still,” said Colonel 
Whitney. “ I guess I know what’s due company. 
Katsy, you go bring the lantern.” 

Kate lighted the lantern, and went out with her 
father to the barn. 

While the Colonel was gone for a bucket of water, 
she unbuckled the saddle, and slipped a halter around 
the horse’s neck, and led him into an empty stall. 
Old Tom put his head over the side of his box and 
whinnied. 

“ There, Tom,” cried Kate, “ don’t be jealous 
because he’s so much better looking than you are. 
Father,” she added, as the Colonel came back, “ this 


34 The Story of Kate 

is a beautiful horse, and has had splendid care. And 
do look at that saddle. I bet it cost a lot.” 

“ I’m always inclined to trust a man who takes 
good care of his beast,” said her father. “ The 
joke’s on us, Katsy. Mother did hear a step. And 
there you and I were a-laughing so smart.” 

“Where did you leave Pietro?” asked Kate. 

Pietro was a Mexican cowboy employed by her 
father to watch the cattle. Sometimes weeks went 
by without his appearing at the house, and then it 
was only for fresh provisions. He camped by him- 
self on a far corner of the ranch, and cooked his 
own meals. 

“ I left him in Green Hollow,” answered her 
father. “ I paid him off, and I suppose he’ll gamble 
it all away.” 

He limped cheerfully about, mixing the pail of 
yellow feed, and throwing straw down for the bed. 
Kate hung about, patting the horse’s velvet nose, 
and looking into his beautiful eyes. Old Tom and 
the other horses knew there was a stranger among 
them, and moved about in their stalls and whinnied 
mildly. 


A Quest from the Far North 35 

When they went back to the house they found 
Mr. Hitchcock sitting at the table, and Mrs. Whit- 
ney and Chung preparing a supper for him. His hat 
was off, and Kate noticed that the skin on his hands 
and the lower part of his face, particularly, was 
very red, and looked sore, although this was con- 
cealed in part by a close-cropped auburn beard. 
In spite of the trouble with his skin, he reminded 
her of the professors at the university. He did 
not look like a rancher. About his forehead the 
skin was whiter, and his hair clustered back so 
heavily as to impart an appearance of massiveness 
to his distinguished head. 

“ I fear I’m putting your wife to a good deal of 
trouble,” he remarked to the Colonel. 

“ Nothing she likes better,” answered his host, 
resuming his accustomed seat by the stove. He liked 
to see his Annie when there was company, and the 
unwonted excitement brought the roses to her cheeks 
and the old sparkle to her blue eyes. “ I declare,” 
he said now to himself, “ Kate will never be as 
good-looking as her mother. She takes too much 


36 


The Story of Kate 


after my side of the family, and the Lord knows 
we were a set of rawbones, we Whitneys ! ” 

Chung was fussing around Mrs. Whitney. “ I 
git suppah, I git him,” he kept repeating, and she 
suddenly realised how mortified he would be if 
she refused to let him do so. 

“ All right,” she told him, and went back to her 
sewing. 

Years ago Sat Chung had been a cook in the 
family of a bonanza king living on Nob Hill in 
San Francisco, and his long service on the ranch 
had never taken from him his earlier traditions. 
Company was as important an event to him as to 
the rest of the family. He hurried out now to his 
room above the barn, and there twisted up his queue, 
and put on a carefully laundered white apron which 
he kept for state occasions. 

While he finished preparing the supper, the others 
sat and talked. 

“ Clear up anything in the Klondike? ” inquired 
the Colonel. 

For answer Mr. Hitchcock extended both his 
hands, and regarded them speculatively. “ Yes,” he 


A Quest from the Far North 37 


said, “ that’s where I got the scurvy. I tell you it 
was awful, awful. The wonder is any man gets out 
of there alive.” 

“ I guessed right,” said the Colonel, “ I knew 
you must have got it up in the Klondike, either there 
or at sea, and I saw at once you weren’t a sailor.” 

“ I tell my husband he ought to be a detective,” 
interposed Mrs. Whitney, smiling. “ Thread this 
needle for me, Katie, dear.” 

“ That’s a pretty colour,” said Mr. Hitchcock, “ I 
like blue.” He smiled kindly at Kate, as if he 
had divined she was to wear the dress. A look 
of pain suddenly crossed his face, and he ran his 
fingers through his thick hair with a troubled 
motion, and frowning. “ It was awful,” he repeated, 
“ awful. I lost my best friend up there, an English- 
man like myself. We used to stare out on that 
white snow while we ate our salt food and hard 
tack, until it’s a wonder we had any eyes left in our 
heads. I used to think of Nebuchadnezzar, and 
prayed the Lord to turn me into a beast and let me 
feed in a green field. Did any of you ever think 


38 The Story of Kate 

how we couldn’t get along without something green 
to look at? We’ve got to have it.” 

“We don’t see much green out here,” put in Mrs. 
Whitney, a shade of bitterness creeping into her 
voice. 

“ And yet,” cried Mr. Hitchcock, raising his head, 
a sudden light in his eyes, “ I could see it was beau- 
tiful, beautiful. If you could have seen how those 
fields of snow took on colour at sunset, rose and 
violet and gold, and the green and blue glaciers, 
like mountains of glass. Yet I paid the price for 
having seen it.” The light died out of his face, and 
there was again that pained contraction of his brows 
which made his three listeners know he was thinking 
of the friend he lost. “ I paid the price. And do 
you know,” he continued, more soberly, “ the funny 
part of it all was that I couldn’t make up my mind 
that coloured snow and those glass mountains were 
real. I couldn’t, somehow.” 

“ I know what you mean,” cried Kate, with an 
unaccustomed ring in her voice, which made her 
mother look up at her in mild wonder at her child’s 
excitement. “ Only this afternoon I was looking 


A Guest from the Far North 39 

at the mountains and the white dust, and thinking 
they couldn’t be real, and yet I have never seen any 
other kind of mountains.” 

Their guest nodded, and fixed his bright sympa- 
thetic gaze on her face. 

Mrs. Whitney’s face had saddened. She was 
thinking that that red and purple mountain range and 
the white sand seemed only too real. It was the 
green Vermont hills of her girlhood that seemed 
a dream. 

“ There, Annie,” said the Colonel, “ we’re going 
back some time, my dear.” He thought afresh what 
a mistake he had made to sell the cattle at such a 
sacrifice only that morning. If he had only taken 
his wife’s advice and waited! Now, all his profits 
for the last two years were lost. The air blowing 
in the open window was soft and damp. He thought 
how the southwest wind which came to that country 
like the blessing of God was blowing all too tardily 
for him. He felt growing upon him the superstition 
that luck was against him. How dim the stars 
looked in the square of sky seen through the door! 
Usually they sparkled in the hot sky as bright and 


40 The Story of Kate 

clear as he remembered them on winter nights at 
home. 

“ I should like to get a breath of snow-air once 
more,” he said, aloud. “ Why, Annie, there’s your 
maple-sugar.” 

“ I got him,” put in Chung, excitedly. He was 
afraid he would be interfered with, and he wished 
to have the sole honour of preparing the stranger’s 
supper. He put the platter of fried ham and eggs 
on the table, and the tea and biscuits ; then hastened 
to the pantry to dig out a saucer of the soft maple- 
sugar that had come only that week from Vermont. 

However hard the times were, the Colonel never 
failed to send for the tin can of maple-sugar for 
his Annie. “ We’re not so poor yet, but what I 
guess you can have maple-sugar on your flapjacks, 
mother,” he would say. 

“ You Yankees seem to set a great store by maple- 
sugar,” said Mr. Hitchcock, laughing. “ It tastes 
like brown sugar to me. I can’t tell the difference.” 

“ Wait until you taste this,” said Mrs. Whitney. 
But her guest barely tasted the maple-sugar, and 
ate sparingly of the ham and eggs. He seemed to 


A Quest from the Far North 41 

enjoy the canned peaches, and, to Chung’s delight, 
drank five cups of tea, as if each cup were but 
a swallow. Moreover, he drank it clear, without 
cream or sugar, in the Chinese fashion. 

John stepped slyly toward the group, lashing his 
tail. He disliked the stranger, but an irresistible 
desire to sniff at him impelled him to draw near. 

“ Get out, you devil,” said Mr. Hitchcock, giving 
him a push with his foot, but with such a genial smile 
they were none of them in the least offended. “ I 
hate a cat. I once had my shoulder nearly clawed 
out by a mountain cat.” 

John went back to his corner, there to lie and 
watch the family guest through his baleful, half- 
closed green eyes. 

Chung, clearing off the supper things, chuckled. 
He had the superstition that John was possessed 
by an evil spirit, and so he always tried to propitiate 
him. Yet now he rather relished the rebuff dealt 
out to the old cat. 

Another hour passed. Chung and John went off 
to bed, but the rest still sat talking and talking. The 
Colonel brought out a bottle of thin California claret, 


42 The Story of Kate 

and smoked two of the stranger’s excellent cigars, 
and Kate cut and passed her birthday cake once 
more. 

Mrs. Whitney finished the last stitches on the 
blue dimity, and folded it, and laid it on top of 
her sewing-basket. No one thought of the time nor 
of bed. 

Colonel Whitney was anxious to learn of his 
guest’s adventures in the Klondike. He himself had 
been eager to join the gold-hunters, but the entreaties 
of his wife had kept him at home. But, sometimes, 
the Colonel felt that had it not been for his lame leg 
he would have gone, against her advice, in the hope 
of getting rich quickly. 

“ I tell you, sir,” he said, “ this going to the war 
unfits a man for ranch life. It gets into the blood 
and makes him restless, and then there’s nothing 
contents him at such a time but talking over things 
with an old comrade. But I don’t seem to have 
lighted on any G. A. R. men round about here. If 
it hadn’t been for my wife and this lame leg, I’d have 
been at the Klondike myself.” 


A Quest from the Far North 43 

“ You can be thankful you didn’t go,” answered 
Mr. Hitchcock, grimly. 

“ How did you come to go ? ” asked Mrs. Whit- 
ney. “ I don’t suppose you are a married man, 
however. I always hold that a man with a family 
has no right to risk his life.” 

Mr. Hitchcock smiled at her. “ That is right, 
madam,” he said, “ but I was a bachelor, and my 
life was my own to save or lose. My going came 
about carelessly enough. I had been doing too much, 
and was thinking of knocking off work anyway 
for awhile, when I had a letter from a friend of 
mine. He was an Englishman I had known for 
years. He had an orange-ranch down near San 
Diego, but he didn’t have the lucky touch. That 
year the blue mould had spoiled his crop. So he 
wrote to see if I wouldn’t go up to the Klondike 
with him. Well, the idea took me. I was ready 
for some new adventure, and I saw at once I would 
get splendid material for my work in a perfectly 
new field. I cared more for that and the adventure 
than for the gold. The voyage wasn’t so bad. 
Every one was full of excitement and planning how 


44 


The Story of Kate 


they would spend their fortunes. But when we 
finally reached Dawson City, I was for going back 
on the same ship, but my poor friend had the gold 
fever, and I couldn’t get him to come away. He 
was crazy with it, like a man in a fever. Well, it 
was the beginning of the end with him. We made 
our fortunes, but his strength gave out all at once.” 

“ Did he die? ” asked Kate, almost in a whisper. 

Mr. Hitchcock nodded, as if he could not trust 
himself to speak. 

“ Oh, Ephraim,” cried Mrs. Whitney, her blue 
eyes wet with sudden tears, “ how thankful I am you 
didn’t go. What difference would all the gold in 
the world make?” 

“ Listen ! ” cried Kate, holding up her finger. 

They heard the gentlest, the most welcome sound 
in all the world to them, the patter of a fine and 
steady rain. 

“ I didn’t think it would be here until to-morrow 
morning, anyway,” said the Colonel, limping across 
the floor so fast that he beat them all to the door. 

Awhile they all stood silent, the wet mist in their 


A Guest from the Far North 45 


faces. Then Kate broke from the little group and 
danced out into the night. 

“ Kate, Kate/’ called her mother, “ come back, 
child.’’ 

But Kate went dancing, flying around the house 
like a wild thing. And John, detesting the rain 
now that it had come, nevertheless went leaping after 
her. Age could not quench his fiery spirit. 

What a wonderful mystery was the soft, dark 
night and the chill, soft rain! The clear, pitiless 
light of moon and bright stars was gone. Kate 
felt as if her body could scarce hold her spirit, and 
her thought leapt forth to meet the happy year. 
How she would study, how she would work for 
the scholarship the university offered ! All she asked 
was a chance. 

“ Kate, Kate,” called her mother. 

And Kate, always obedient to the anxious note 
in the loving voice, paused in her wild race and 
came back into the house. Her gingham gown was 
soaked with water, and her slim neck rose white 
from the drenched ruffle of her waist. Her yellow 
hair was wet, her cheeks pink, and she looked for 


4 6 


The Story of Kate 


all the world as though her little head were some 
flower that had been refreshed by a shower. 

The air, which had been so quiet since the sun 
set, was now filled with a rushing sound. The 
wind was rising steady and strong. 

“ I guess it’s about time we all turned in,” said 
the Colonel, and began to lock up for the night. 

While Kate and her mother went up-stairs to 
make up the bed for Mr. Hitchcock in the spare 
room, the two men smoked their final pipes. The 
lamp had burned out, but Colonel Whitney took 
off the two front lids of the stove, and the still 
live coals sent forth a red glow that gave them 
sufficient light. 

“ Glad as I am for the rains, and I’m mighty 
thankful,” he said, “ I’m always a bit afraid they’ll 
bring back my rheumatism, so I just get my leg good 
and warm at the oven before I tuck it in for the 
night. I tell you, sir, that was a terrible war we 
had.” And having started on his favourite sub- 
ject, it was with great reluctance that he rose, obedi- 
ent to his Annie’s voice, and showed Mr. Hitchcock 
to his room. 


A Quest from the Far North 47 


Kate was nearly undressed when Mrs. Whitney 
half-opened the door. 

“ Here is your blue dress all finished, daughter, 
for you to fold away.” 

Kate was sitting on the floor drawing off her 
stockings. 

“ Haven’t we had fun to-night ? ” she asked. 

“Yes, but now get right to bed,” answered her 
mother, with a tired, loving smile, and closed the 
door. 

Kate laid the gown out lovingly on the bed. How 
dainty it was with the narrow black velvet ribbon 
drawn through the beaded lace! She had visions 
of herself in it at class socials and college teas. 

“ I’ve half a mind to try it on,” she murmured. 
She slipped her bare feet back into her shoes, undid 
her hair, which she had already braided for the 
night, and coiled it up in a high knot on her head. 

Then she put on the dress, and holding the lamp 
in her hand that she might see better her fair reflec- 
tion in the dim mirror of the old-fashioned bureau, 
she paraded back and forth, craning her neck to this 
side and that to procure a better view. At last she 


48 The Story of Kate 

took it off most reluctantly, and seated herself on 
the floor to arrange it in the lower bureau drawer 
with her other finery. The drawer was now quite 
full of the sweet and fragrant belongings of a girl. 
There was the fan her father had given her when 
she graduated from the high school. She spread 
it open and tried the effect against the blue dress; 
then wrapped it up again in the tissue-paper. There 
was the white graduating frock her mother’s skilful 
fingers had remodelled and retouched with yellow 
bows. There were her slippers and new silk shirt- 
waist and best handkerchiefs and ribbons, all deli- 
cate with the rose sachets she had made herself 
from the dried leaves of Chung’s carefully tended 
roses. 

Smiling, happy as in a dream, she slowly closed 
the drawer and finished her undressing. But when 
she had at last blown out the lamp and lain down 
in her hard, narrow, immaculate little bed, she found 
she could not sleep. She kept thinking of all Mr. 
Hitchcock had said about the North, the snowy fields 
with the rose and violet lights, the glaciers like 
mountains of glass, blue and green. It reminded her 


A Quest from the Far North 49 

of a fairy story she had read long ago, in which a 
prince had to scale a glass mountain. She wished 
she might go up to the Klondike herself and see 
the marvellous beauty for herself. She tried to 
imagine a white world. At last she became so 
restless she could not stay in bed, but got up and 
went to the window and listened to the gentle sound 
of the rain and the deep murmur of the wind. 

She was thirsty, and opened her door and crept 
softly down the stairs, her feet bare, so as to make 
no sound. There was still heat in the kitchen stove, 
and she stood by it, quite enjoying the warmth, as 
she drank a cup of water. 

When she went up-stairs again she heard voices, 
and smiled to think that she was not the only wakeful 
one in the house. The voices came from her 
father’s and mother’s room, and she started toward 
the door to whisper some merry good-night word 
to them, when she was startled by a sound that 
almost made her heart stop beating. It was a man’s 
sudden, discouraged, heartsick sob. 

Awed and frightened, Kate stood motionless on 
the threshold of their room and listened. 


CHAPTER III. 


Kate’s Sacrifice 

Then she heard her mother’s voice. “ Suppose 
you’d sold all the cattle, or any of us were sick. 
I always mind me of that, Ephraim. The Lord has 
given us good health. We mustn’t let Kate know 
we’ve been blue, for the child is so tender-hearted 
she wouldn’t get over it as quick as you and I, who 
have been through so much worse in our lives.” 

“ That’s just it,” groaned poor Colonel Whitney. 
“ I don’t see how we can afford to let the little girl 
go up to the university in the fall, and I won’t let 
her go and work her own way as she tried to. If 
she were a boy it would be different. It isn’t for 
myself I mind. You know that, Annie. It’s you 
and Kate. I declare I felt guilty when I bought 
myself some tobacco over in Green Hollow to-day, 
and yet it seems as if I couldn’t get along nohow 
without it.” 

50 


Kate's Sacrifice 


5i 


“ Now, Ephraim,” answered his wife, decidedly, 
“ you know I’m perfectly content, except for a touch 
of homesickness now and then, but we mustn’t 
disappoint that child. The rains are going to save 
the crops right in the nick of time, and we’ll just pay 
the interest on the mortgage out of the cattle money, 
and use the rest to send the child to the university. 
It would break her heart. And we’ve got her 
clothes all ready. Why, I’ve put my eyes out sewing 
for her. I can’t give up letting her go, Ephraim, 
for all the mortgages in the world.” There was a 
quaver in Mrs. Whitney’s brave voice. 

Kate did not wait to hear more. She crept back 
into her room and shut the door softly. Then she 
flung herself down on the bed and smothered her 
sobs on the pillow. But her weeping, though violent, 
was short, and soon she sat up and gave a defiant 
little nod to the darkness. 

“ I guess it won’t kill me if I do give up going 
for another year,” she said, aloud, and rose and 
went over to the window, and stared out at the 
blackness of the dripping heavens, and heard the 
roar of the rain. It had come just one day too late. 


52 


The Story of Kate 


If the southwest wind had come only one day 
earlier! Her room was on the east side of the 
house, so that the wind and rain drove by her, and 
she could stand close to the window and not get 
wet, save for the mist. She reached out and picked 
a spray of the heliotrope. She knew the blossoms 
were withered, but she thought the leaves smelled 
sweet with the promise of a bud. She could hear 
the swaying and the clash of the six tall eucalyptus- 
trees in front of the house. In the morning their 
leaves would be green again instead of white with 
dust. 

“ I wish the rain could get into my heart and wash 
all the dust and grit out,” she murmured, whimsi- 
cally. “ Oh, how ugly and cross and mad I feel at 
father for selling the cattle! Oh, deary me, deary 
me, I don’t feel as if I ever could laugh again as 
long as I live.” And then suddenly, she did laugh. 
" Anyway, Chung has saved his horrid old roses. 
I wish they could all turn into the cattle father. sold. 
And what an awful temper I must be in to wish any- 
thing so beautiful as roses to turn into steers.” 


Kate's Sacrifice 


53 


She tried to put a cheerful face on the matter. It 
was a lesson she had learned from her mother. 

“ Katie, dear,” Mrs. Whitney had said many and 
many a time, “ get into the habit of thinking that 
everything is for the best if disappointments come 
after you have done all you could.” 

“ For mother is plucky,” thought Kate now, 
pluckier in some ways than father, and I guess 
it's up to me now to be plucky, as the boys at the 
university say.” 

It was growing colder and damper, and like the 
little old woman in Mother Goose who had her 
petticoats cut all round about by the peddler, Kate 
began to shiver and to shake. 

“ I’ve had my petticoats cut off in fancy,” she 
thought, creeping back into bed and drawing the 
covers warmly over her; “ I almost wish I’d never 
planned to go to the university.” 

Her courage and hope soon conquered her regret, 
and she lay awake planning out the next year. She 
would take the country school at Green Hollow if 
she could get it. She figured out for how much she 
could board, and how much she could save. And 


54 


The Story of Kate 


then, if things went well on the ranch, her mother 
could come up and make her a visit when she went 
back to the university the year later. 

At last she fell asleep to the fast patter of the 
rain on the roof. 

This continuous gentle sound was so unchanged 
when she wakened that it scarcely seemed she could 
have been asleep. But the room was light. The 
mountains were hidden in the mist. Every gutter 
had become a small river. And the eucalyptus-trees ! 
How splendid they were with their bluish green 
leaves, the young leaves tinged with red! The 
withered flowers had been beaten off the rose-vines, 
and there were clusters and clusters of green buds, 
some showing a bit of white, or yellow, or ever so 
faint a red. How sly they had been, all those buds, 
to keep their heads covered with dust until the 
miracle of the rain came! 

“ Oh, won’t you be lovely when you bloom ! ” she 
cried, and put her own head out of the window, and 
shut her eyes to let the rain fall on her face. She felt 
like a bird taking its morning bath. The cool, sharp 
spray was delicious. 


Kate's Sacrifice 


55 


She hurried to dress, for she could hear Chung 
getting breakfast down-stairs. 

“ Hallo,” said Chung, when she came down. He 
was frying a chicken which he had killed the night 
before. The table was set with the damask cloth, 
and in the centre Was a vase holding some sprays of 
heliotrope faintly budded. 

“ I tell you you’ll have to work hard, now, 
Chung,” said Kate, trying to tease him. “ Father 
will have to get in a lot of ranch hands when the 
crops are ripe.” 

“ Heap work,” assented Chung, cheerfully. In 
honour of the guest he had on his white apron, and 
looked unusually nice. 

They found Mr. Hitchcock to be even a more 
entertaining person than he had proved himself the 
night before. The warmth from the kitchen stove 
was more than ever pleasant, the fried chicken and 
coffee and raised biscuit delicious. Mrs. Whitney 
was thankful to have company, not only for the 
diversion it afforded to Kate and herself, but because 
it took her husband’s mind away for awhile from 
his business troubles. 


56 The Story of Kate 

As for Colonel Whitney himself, he was divided 
between his desire to talk about his own experiences 
in the war and his eagerness to learn more of the 
region of the Klondike. 

All through the breakfast not one of them lost 
consciousness of the rain. Several times there would 
be a lull in the conversation, and then they would 
all laugh to find how they were listening to the 
driving of the storm. 

“ As if it were almost too good to be true,” said 
Mrs. Whitney. 

“ I guess they’ll open the school now over at 
Green Hollow,” remarked Kate. “ I hope I can 
get it.” 

Both her father and mother looked at her quickly 
in surprise. 

She spread some apricot jam on a bit of bread, 
and her face was quite calm, but she couldn’t have 
told afterward what kind of jam it was. 

“ I thought you’d set your heart on going to the 
university, daughter,” said Mrs. Whitney. 

Kate raised a pair of unconcerned gray eyes. No 
one knew how fast her heart was beating. “ Well, 


Kate's Sacrifice 


57 

I was thinking it over,” she answered, “ and I came 
to the conclusion that about the most sensible thing 
I could do was to take that position if I could 
get it.” 

“ I hope you’re not thinking there’s some reason 
you can’t go back to the university, Katsy,” said 
Colonel Whitney. 

“ Well, we won’t argue it now,” put in Mrs. 
Whitney. “ I guess we don’t have to make up our 
minds this minute.” She was puzzled, and wanted 
to talk the matter over when alone with Kate. 

Mr. Hitchcock nodded his massive head in ap- 
proval. “ That’s a sensible girl,” he said, “ there’s 
too much study these days. It’s nothing but cram, 
cram, cram, and none of our young people are taught 
to learn anything from the earth and sky. I always 
get in a whack at universities and colleges. Teach 
them more of the arts, I say. I’d rather a daughter 
of mine could tell me the colour of the dust at sunset 
than to beat her teacher in mathematics.” 

Kate looked up quickly, and met their guest’s 
bright, peculiar gaze. She knew what he meant. 
How often she had watched the clouds of reddened 


58 The Story of Kate 

dust at sunset enveloping a wagon or the dashing 
figure of some cowboy on his horse. Only the even- 
ing before, the sun-illumined dust had glorified the 
homely figures of Chung and John, as they crossed 
the fields that Chung might bring back buckets of 
water from their then scanty store for his roses. 

“ I was a pretty good head at arithmetic myself 
when I taught school back East,” remarked Mrs. 
Whitney. She did not agree with Mr. Hitchcock in 
his estimate of colleges. 

“ Annie could always beat me at figures,” said 
the Colonel, smiling at his wife, and thinking again 
that Kate would never have her mother’s looks. 

“ I guess we can afford to start a kitchen-garden, 
Kate,” said her mother; “ and, Ephraim, I reckon 
you can put up those shelves for me, and do quite 
a little puttering about the house while this wet spell 
is on.” 

“ I thought this rain would give you an ambitious 
streak,” commented the Colonel, with a wink at his 
guest ; “ you’ll have to look up my tools, mother.” 

“ No matter how poor people are in England they 
have a kitchen-garden, if they have a bit of a yard,” 


Kate's Sacrifice 


59 

said Mr. Hitchcock ; “ and here they’re too easy- 
going.” 

“ It’s called the tin-can country, you know,” 
answered his host. “ Every man raises only his 
particular thing, and lives on canned goods. Why, 
lots of cattlemen never use anything but condensed 
milk.” 

“ I call it pure shiftlessness,” said Mrs. Whitney, 
positively. 

“ The sight of a tin can takes away my appetite,” 
remarked Mr. Hitchcock. “ Up in the Klondike I 
didn’t get a thing that wasn’t canned. I tell you 
though it was harder yet, when after awhile the 
canned things gave out. I paid fifty dollars for one 
can of tomatoes for my poor friend. Look at my 
hands. Scurvy’s an awful thing.” 

Late in the morning he announced that he must go, 
and insisted upon going out to the barn himself 
and saddling his horse. 

“ This rain will last a week,” he said, “ so I 
might as well start now.” 

Kate packed a lunch for him, and wrapped it in 
a piece of oilskin so it would not get wet. “ And 


6o 


The Story of Kate 


I hope you’ll find a shed somewhere in which to 
stop and eat it,” she added. 

“ Good-bye, good-bye,” he said, shaking hands 
with them all around ; “ I shall never forget this 
visit with you. I know your kitchen -garden will 
be a success, Mrs. Whitney. Plant some goose- 
berry bushes for gooseberry tart. Nothing better 
with cold mutton.” He had too much knowledge of 
the hospitality of the country to offer to pay for 
his lodging, but he pressed upon the Colonel all 
the cigars he had with him, and he slipped a gold 
piece of substantial value into the skinny yellow 
palm of Chung. 

“ I guess he cleared up a fortune in the Klondike,” 
remarked the Colonel. “ I wish to the Lord you’d 
let me go, Annie.” 

Kate stood at the front door and watched the 
horseman as he went down the road. Where did 
he come from? Where was he going? Her imagi- 
nation invested him with romance. But soon the 
rain that shut out the mountains closed in upon him 
also, and he was lost to view. His 'words had 
touched her vaguely. They had appealed to her 


Kate's Sacrifice 


61 


secret foolish fancies. She had never heard any one 
else say that real mountains could seem unreal, that 
dust could be anything but white. 

Such a wonderful rain as it was ! For over a week 
it rained ; then at sunset on the eighth day the gray 
sky parted, and oh, such a glory, such a glory! 

“ The mountains have come back,” cried Kate, 
in ecstasy, as she and her mother stood together on 
the front porch. 

There the long range stretched, peak on peak, 
redder and purpler than ever. 

“ It will rain again,” said the Colonel, coming 
around from the side of the house; “the sun’s 
drawing water.” 

And it did with fitful fierceness for the next ten 
days. It was the heaviest rainfall that had been 
known in the State for twenty years. 

Pietro, the Mexican cowboy, was driven in by 
the rain, and roomed in the barn and took his meals 
with the family. He was a wiry, dark-skinned little 
fellow, with scarcely ever a word to say to them, 
although his White teeth would flash in an occasional 
smile. The Colonel had a Yankee prejudice against 


62 The Story of Kate 

the Mexican’s dark skin, and he never quite trusted 
him, as he did Chung. The cattle were corailed, and 
there was a shed where they could get protection 
from the rain. 

“ I guess you’ll be going back to college all right, 
Katsy,” said her father, jubilant, as he thought of 
his crops. “ I guess you didn’t mean that about 
taking the district school.” 

“ Yes, I did,” she told him; “ I want you to put 
that money on the mortgage, and I’d feel a great 
deal better if I earned the money myself. And then, 
too,” she added, bravely, “ you know I’m quite a 
little ahead for my age. Most girls don’t get in as 
early as I did. Of course, if I don’t get the school 
I will go up to the university, and manage somehow 
so as not to waste time. But I think the experience 
of teaching will be good for me.” 

She kept to her resolution. Mrs. Whitney, if any- 
thing, felt more keenly the disappointment than her 
daughter. Kate’s resolution rebuked her, as if the 
child had more common sense than she herself, but 
after a little her own cheerful spirit conquered, and 
she found herself thinking happily of the coming 


Kate’s Sacrifice 


63 


year, which was to afford her more opportunities of 
seeing her little girl, for Green Hollow was not far 
away. Kate’s sturdy independence these days was a 
source of real strength to her mother. 

A busy summer followed the spring rains, and 
the two, with the assistance of Chung, had all they 
could do to feed the ranch hands during the harvest- 
ing. In the first flush of her resolve, the sacrifice she 
contemplated seemed easy, but, as the weeks went 
by, Kate was often depressed, dumbly resentful of 
her fate ; often she felt even wickedly resentful 
toward her parents for the sacrifice she, herself, had 
insisted upon making. 

The summer was so monotonous that the 
stranger’s visit when the rains came stood out on 
the horizon of the daily routine as an event of 
importance. She often wondered about him, and 
wished that she might hear him talk again. She 
thought of him when there appeared over the low 
foot-hills that veil of tender green which was the 
grass, and was almost as swift to go again as the 
apricot blossoms. A few weeks of the burning sun, 
and all was brown. 


6 4 


The Story of Kate 


“ Mother, dear,” she said, “ do you remember how 
Mr. Hitchcock said there was no colour like green? ” 

The homesick tears came all unbidden to the 
eyes of the New England woman. “ I hope you 
will see the Vermont hills sometime, Katie.” 

Not once that summer did Kate open the lower 
bureau drawer which contained her simple girlish 
finery. She could not bear to look at the dainty 
things. When her courage was almost gone, she 
would take down her text-books and study hard. 
For she kept up her studies with as much conscien- 
tiousness as ever, although no longer fired by as 
eager an ambition. She recited to herself, and wrote 
English themes, and tried very hard to be her own 
critic. But she made much progress in her French 
by the aid of the English-French dictionary that 
was her birthday gift. So the summer wore away, 
and the August harvest was one of plenty. In 
the extreme southern part of California, flowers that 
had not been seen on the desert for twenty years 
bloomed, owing to the fruitful rains. Once during 
the summer they had another visitor. He was a 
botanist, and had come south to study the unusual 


Kate's Sacrifice 


65 


flora. He remained over night on the ranch, and 
proved himself to be a pleasant, if not as entertaining 
a guest as Mr. Hitchcock. 

Kate sent in her application and credentials to 
the school board at Green Hollow, and was elected 
teacher for one year. School work was well paid in 
California, and she was to receive fifty dollars a 
month, as she would have full charge of the work, 
with no assistant. 

The morning came at last when her father hitched 
up old Tom and his companion, Jerry, to drive her 
over to Green Hollow. The little hair trunk that 
had been part of her mother’s wedding trousseau 
was snugly packed and placed in the back of the 
wagon. The wagon had a buggy top over the front 
seat, and was quite comfortable. The day was a 
typical California day, sunny and fresh, with a 
brilliant sky. 

“ Now, father, you and Kate eat all the lunch, and 
take time to do it justice,” cried Mrs. Whitney, as 
she put it in the basket. 

Just as they were about to start, Chung came 
hurrying around the house with a bunch of roses, 


66 


The Story of Kate 


and a basket which had the cover strapped on. 
Inside, the imprisoned John gave an indignant meow. 

“ I don’t want him, Chung,” cried Kate, laughing, 
although she was almost in tears at leaving her 
mother. 

“Yes, you tek,” answered Chung, obstinately. 
“ Him all samee as fliend.” 

And she hadn’t the heart to hurt his feelings by 
refusing. 

They took their time getting to Green Hollow, 
for there was no need of haste, as they had an 
unusually early start. 

Once, Pietro, who somehow always seemed to 
know what was going on at the house, galloped 
madly by them, with a gleam of his white teeth, and 
shot down the road in a cloud of dust. 

“ He meant that for good-bye, I guess,” said Kate, 
laughing. She liked Pietro. 

“ I know an old deserted house where we can 
lunch, Katsy,” said the Colonel. “ I remember 
passing it last spring, and it looked terrible forlorn. 
But it’ll be better than sitting down on the road.” 

But the deserted house proved to be far from 


Kate's Sacrifice 67 

desolate, for it was covered with roses, and there 
was a peach orchard. 

“ Well, well,” said the Colonel, “ you’ve no idea 
how different it looked in the winter.” 

They sat down on the rotting veranda, which 
was, however, so picturesque, and had their lunch 
and the cold coffee, and gathered a few late peaches. 
Over their heads was Kate’s favourite rose, the 
wild yellow sweet-briar, and in the front yard were 
bushes of white moss tea-roses. 

“ Why, father,” cried Kate, “ don’t you think 
it’s strange that the people who lived here planted 
only two kinds of roses ? ” 

After lunch she went through the house. There 
was much rubbish, and her explorations unearthed 
an old gilt-framed oval mirror which she insisted on 
taking, much to the Colonel’s amusement, and in 
spite of his warning that the people who left it might 
have had fever. 

It was four o’clock when they reached Green 
Hollow. It was set like a cup in the mountains, 
and took its name from the fact that often, when 
the surrounding country was brown, it was emerald, 


68 


The Story of Kate 


fed as it was by mountain snow-streams. There 
was a grocery and butcher shop, a drug store, which 
further confined within its four walls the town post- 
office and the dry-goods department. A number of 
the houses were on the main street, and others dotted 
the mountain slopes on either side of this principal 
thoroughfare. The most pretentious building was 
a two-storied frame house with a wide veranda. 
This house was painted sky blue, and was known 
as the Louvre. Here miners and ranchmen and 
cowboys stayed when they came into town, and 
lounged about the bar or played cards in the parlour. 

Colonel Whitney pointed out the schoolhouse 
to Kate, as they drove by. It was the first building 
at the beginning of the street as they entered. It 
was made of logs, and had a rough stone foundation. 
Near by was a space fenced in as a corral for those 
students who had to ride to school on their ponies. 
In front of the schoolhouse was one giant eucalyptus. 

Two barefoot boys walking down the road drew 
aside to let them pass. Kate looked down into the 
blue eyes of the smaller of the two, and encountered 
a critical and unabashed stare. 


Kate's Sacrifice 


69 


When they were by she heard a shout, and turned 
involuntarily. The boy she had noticed made a 
funnel of his hands and shouted, derisively: 

“ Teacher, teacher! ” 

Kate turned her back, and stiffened her slim neck 
haughtily. She glanced at her father, but he had 
not noticed the incident, and was looking ahead into 
the town. 


CHAPTER IV. 

All Night at “ Higgins’s ” 

Mrs. Higgins, the wife of one of the school- 
board committee, had sent word that she would take 
Kate to board. The grocer, Mr. Love, was an old 
acquaintance of the Coloners, and he directed them 
to the house. 

“ It looks a little shabby, Katsy,” said her father, 
as they approached it. 

“ Oh, no, it doesn’t,” she answered, bravely, “ it 
looks real homelike. Don’t tell mother it was differ- 
ent from what we thought.” 

The house was only a story high, and was a 
good bit up the mountain. The front yard, which 
was fenced in, sloped straight down toward the 
street. They tied the horses, and then opened the 
gate and went up to the house. Mrs. Higgins met 

them at the door, and any doubts Colonel Whitney 
70 


All Night at “Higgins’s” 


7i 


might have had regarding the welfare of his little 
girl was at once dispelled by the motherly face of 
their hostess. She was an enormously stout woman, 
dressed in a bright pink calico, and she put her 
arms around Kate and drew her into the house, 
giving her at the same time a hearty kiss. 

“ Sorry Higgins is out,” she said. “ Just drive 
those horses around to the back door, where the 
road winds up, and I’ll help you h’ist the trunk in.” 

While the Colonel went to take the team around, 
she led Kate up the long yard and through the 
house to the back door, to meet him there. 

“ Land sakes, that ain’t a cat you’ve got in the 
basket, is it ? ” she asked. “ But bring it right in. 
Higgins is fond of cats. I’ll just help you tote this 
trunk into the sitting-room for the present.” 

Colonel Whitney kissed his little girl good-bye, 
and hurried away to hide his emotion. It gave him 
a pang to see her left to shift for herself. Then, 
too, time had flown, and he must hurry if he would 
arrive home before midnight. 

“ Don’t forget mother’s errands,” called Kate, as 
she waved him good-bye from the front door. She 


72 


The Story of Kate 


watched him out of sight; then turned back into 
the house to take off her hat and jacket, and lay 
them on the lounge. It was such a wide lounge 
that she wondered if it were used for a bed, and 
if it were intended that she should sleep there. The 
cottage seemed so small. 

Mrs. Higgins rocked placidly back and forth in 
front of her, and plied her with questions. It was 
soon time, however, for her to start supper, and 
so for awhile Kate was left alone. 

She looked around her. There was not a paper 
or book which she could read. 

The only picture was a coloured lithograph of the 
first railroad built in California. On the table was 
a blue plush photograph album and a glass lamp. 
The floor was covered by a rag carpet, but the walls 
were rough-plastered and bare. 

“ P’r’aps you’d like to come out into the kitchen 
and visit ? ” asked Mrs. Higgins, beaming in at her 
from the door. 

“ Yes, indeed,” answered Kate, eagerly, feeling 
that she would be homesick if left to herself. 

The kitchen was a low and narrow shed, with 


All Night at “Higgins’s ” 


73 


a porch running the length of it. It commanded a 
splendid view of the mountain that rose precipitously 
back of the house, and by throwing one’s head way 
back one could see snow on the peak. 

Mrs. Higgins moved leisurely about setting the 
table. Kate’s eyes opened wide. For some unknown 
reason she had taken it for granted that there was to 
be no one in the family save Mr. and Mrs. Higgins 
and herself. She counted the plates. There were 
eight. 

“ Do you have other boarders? ” she inquired. 

“No, indeed,” said her hostess; “we took you, 
seeing as you might be company for Cynthy. Hig- 
gins and she has gone off this afternoon. I told ’em 
you would be here, and to stay to home. But they 
said you weren’t company, seeing as you was coming 
here to live right along.” 

“ You haven’t yet told me what board I am to 
pay,” ventured Kate, after awhile. She was anxious 
to come to some business arrangement, and find out 
where her room was that she might unpack her 
trunk. 

“ Bless you, child,” cried Mrs. Higgins, “ we don’t 


74 


The Story of Kate 


want you to pay board. Higgins and 1 like young 
people, and, as he said, you’d be company for 
Cynthy.” She stepped out on the porch, and blew 
a blast on a battered horn that hung beside the door. 

“ They’ll be here time the hot bread is browned 
nice. My family’s healthy, and turns up regular at 
meal-times. Come out here on the porch. Ain’t 
the mountain pretty back here? I like to set here 
and rock and look up at it.” 

She put the potatoes on to fry, and made the 
coffee, and then seated herself to resume her placid 
conversation. 

Kate sat on the edge of the porch, and realised that 
she felt wholly miserable. How could she insist 
upon being shown to her room when Mrs. Higgins 
evidently would not hear of being paid for her 
board? And she would never stay without paying. 
And who could those eight plates be for ? Counting 
in the absent Mr. Higgins and Cynthy, there were 
four plates left. If there were four younger children 
where did they sleep? 

From the sitting-room came a yell of mingled 
terror and delight, and in another moment John leapt 


All Night at “Higgins's” 75 

by Mrs. Higgins, past Kate’s head, and vanished in 
the mountain undergrowth. 

“ Oh, what will Chung say ? ” cried Kate, and 
rushed after the old cat. But she called and called 
in vain. When at last she turned back, discouraged, 
she saw a couple of boys standing watching her. 
She recognised them as the two who had shouted 
after her down the road that afternoon. 

“ He’ll come back,” said the older of the two, 
with a grin. “ Say, did you know it was us you 
passed this afternoon back there on the town road? 
I bet Aaron you was the new teacher.” 

“ I suppose you are two of my scholars,” she 
answered, with dignity, trying to hide her annoyance 
over the way they had treated poor John. 

“ Aaron’s the smartest in his class for his age, 
and I’m the worst,” continued he. 

“ Well, it’s ’cause I work,” retorted Aaron, with 
sturdy self-approval, “ and Billy, he don’t. I’ll go 
hunt up your cat.” 

Kate sat down again on the stoop and watched 
the elder boy trailing lazily after the energetic 
Aaron. She felt she was not going to like 


76 The Story of Kate 

Aaron. Suddenly the two stopped and whispered 
together. 

“They’re up to some mischief, I’ll be bound,” com- 
mented Mrs. Higgins, rocking just within the kitchen 
door. “ Them boys are as entertaining a pair of 
critters as I ever knew. Cynthy’s got a sullen streak 
in her make-up, same as Higgins. Now what is it, 
you Billy?” as the boy came back giggling. His 
eyes met his mother’s, and she too commenced to 
laugh in pure sympathy. 

“ What’s the joke? ” inquired Kate, as pleasantly 
as she could, but secretly irritated by this senseless 
fun. 

“ ’Tain’t no joke,” answered Mrs. Higgins, easily, 
rising to stir down the coffee ; “ Billy’s always 
just that comical.” 

“ ’Tain’t no joke at all,” repeated Billy, trying 
to look grave, “ but Aaron he says he wants to know 
if you spell scissors with two s’s or three.” 

“ Three,” said Kate, sharply, and then felt her 
cheeks grow scarlet, as Billy gave a shout of glee 
and yelled out “ three ” to Aaron. How could she 
have made such a slip? No one knew better than 


All Night at “Higgins's” 


77 


she that the word was spelled with four s’s. Her 
fingers twitched to box Billy’s ears. 

“ Now you boys go ’long and stop teasing the 
new teacher. You’d better not let your father catch 
you at it,” warned Mrs. Higgins. “ Ain’t they that 
comical, Miss Kate? I declare I couldn’t tell myself 
whether it was spelled double s or double z. But, 
land sakes, what difference does it make? It don’t 
make scissors anything but scissors.” 

Kate watched her prospective pupils disappear 
in the underbrush with feelings that very nearly 
approached dislike. She knew that if she lived to 
be a thousand years old she could never forget the 
humiliation of this moment. The colour on her 
cheeks burned bright, but she held her slim neck 
all the stiffer, and answered Mrs. Higgins’s remarks 
as pleasantly as if nothing disagreeable had occurred. 

Cynthy and her father came in just as the hot 
bread was being taken out of the oven. Mr. Higgins 
was a tall, bearded, rather rough-looking man. But 
Kate liked him at once. There was an honest, kindly 
look in his dark eyes that attracted her. He was 
foreman at a mine, and was home now for a few 


78 


The Story of Kate 


days. He greeted Kate cordially, and then took the 
soap and towel from the kitchen and went to wash 
at the bench in the grape-arbour. 

And as for Cynthy, Kate stared at her. She had 
never before seen any one as beautiful. Cynthy 
was as straight and symmetrical as a young redwood. 
Her eyes were like brown wells; her brown hair 
was knotted low in her neck. Her cheeks were soft 
and richly flushed, and her lips were crimson. She 
\vore a faded gown of blue and white checked 
gingham, and her brown feet were bare. She shook 
hands gravely with the new teacher, but did not 
smile. The two boys came back after a vain search 
for John, and followed their father to the bench in 
the grape-arbour to wash their faces and hands and 
dusty feet before coming in. 

“ Miss Kate,” called Mrs. Higgins’s cheerful 
voice, “ just take down that horn and blow another 
toot.” 

So Kate blew the old battered horn a blast which 
brought home the two younger children, who were 
called Jenny and Bobby. 

Bobby immediately climbed up into Kate’s lap, 


All Night at “ Higgins 9 s 99 79 

but she put him down, not liking his small dusty 
feet on her black cloth skirt. 

“ I reckon you’re not fond of children,” said 
Cynthy, picking up Bobby to carry him into the 
house. 

“ I don’t believe in spoiling them,” answered Kate, 
decisively. She looked very dainty and precise in 
her neat low shoes, her black skirt, and well- 
starched white shirt-waist, with the strip of embroid- 
ery down the front. Her pretty yellow hair was 
gathered up on her head, and she wore a small 
turquoise ring on her hand. Altogether she was a 
great contrast to Cynthy. 

She never forgot that first supper at Green 
Hollow. Her seat w^as opposite the open door. 
Outside the mountain rose like a wonderful living 
wall. Now and then she saw the flash of a bird 
and heard their continual twitter, and every once 
in awhile the jangle of a cow-bell. The supper was 
bountiful. There was a dish of cucumbers soaking 
in vinegar, the big plate of hot bread, delicious honey 
and butter, fried potatoes and ham, glasses of milk 


8o 


The Story of Kate 


for the younger children, and thick cups of weak 
coffee for the others. 

Cynthy alone was silent. Her beautiful, grave 
face never changed expression, and Kate kept glanc- 
ing toward her curiously, wondering what she could 
be thinking about. She would have been astonished 
could she have known that Cynthy was thinking of 
nothing in particular beyond her enjoyment of the 
hearty supper. Aaron regarded Kate from time to 
time with his unabashed and speculative stare, and 
this made her nervous. She had no doubt that he 
was cogitating up some dreadful word with which 
to tax her memory. But for some reason he did 
nothing to torment her. Afterward she learned 
that both the boys were afraid of their father. 
Mr. Higgins seemed quiet and reserved, but he 
expressed the hope that she would like Green Hollow, 
added that he’d attend to boys who cut up any 
capers, and urged her to eat more of the honey, 
which had been sent in by a friend. After supper 
he put on his hat, lighted his pipe, nodded pleasantly 
to Kate, and went off down to the Louvre. 

The cleaning of the table and dishes devolved upon 


All Night at “Higgins’s” 81 

the two girls. Cynthy washed in absolute silence, 
and Kate wiped in a silence as great, filled with 
deepening amazement at the situation in which she 
found herself. 

When the dishes were put away they went to 
the well to fill the bucket with fresh water for the 
night. The moon was risen, and the chill of the 
California evening was already in the air. A bird 
piped up clear and relapsed into silence. Cynthy 
looked at Kate across the bucket of water they 
carried between them, and smiled. Her smile said 
more than many words. It was entirely friendly, and 
Kate knew that Cynthy liked her. 

“ I know where there are some young owls,” said 
Cynthy. “ I’ll show you sometime, but don’t tell 
Billy and Aaron.” 

They joined Mrs. Higgins in the sitting-room, 
which was lighted by an oil lamp too small and dim 
to work by. Cynthy undressed the two younger 
children, and put them to bed in the next room 
while Mrs. Higgins visited with Kate. 

About nine- o’clock the two boys came home. 


82 


The Story of Kate 


“ Get off that lounge, Cynthy,” cried Billy ; “ we 
want to go to bed.” 

So she took a seat on Kate’s trunk, and Mrs. 
Higgins rose and spread her ample skirts. The 
two boys, thus protected from observation, undressed 
behind her with many titters, and were in bed with 
the covers drawn over them before Kate could 
recover from her embarrassment. 

“ Now, Miss Kate,” said Mrs. Higgins, taking her 
seat again, “ go on with what you were telling 
about them girls at the university. I like to hear 
of young people’s pranks. Why, if I wasn’t so stout 
I declare if I wouldn’t be acting younger than 
Cynthy. You’re a regular Higgins, you are, 
Cynthy.” 

“ Pa says so, too,” answered Cynthy, with one 
of her rare smiles. She was braiding a basket out 
of sweet grass, and the faint yet penetrating odour 
was pleasant but oppressive to Kate. Cynthy had 
learned the art of basket-making from an old squaw. 

“ I’m making this here for you,” she said to Kate. 

The boys were already sound asleep, in spite of the 
lamp-light and the close little room. Aaron lay on 


All Night at 6 i Higgins 9 s 99 83 

his back, with a look of entire innocence on his 
young face. 

“ Horrid boy,” thought Kate, stealing a look at 
him. 

“ I don’t know but what we might as well turn 
in before Pa comes home, girls,” suggested Mrs. 
Higgins, as it neared ten o’clock. “ Have a bite of 
cake, Miss Kate. I always keep it in that tin box 
on the upper shelf in the cupboard, out of the reach 
of the young ones, or it’d be gone fast as I made it.” 

“ No, thank you,” answered Kate, feeling as if 
a mouthful of food would choke her, “ I guess I’ll 
just step out into the kitchen and get a cup of 
water.” 

The moon was shining into the open doorway. 
She stepped outside. How calm and beautiful it 
was, but oh, so lonely. She heard the cry of an owl, 
and it made her more homesick than ever ; it was so 
solemn. 

She called John several times, but to no avail. 
Poor Chung would take it hard if his pet were lost. 

“ I just shoved your trunk under the lounge,” 
said Mrs. Higgins, when she returned ; “ I thought 


8 4 


The Story of Kate 


you wouldn’t want to unpack it to-night, seeing 
as you can sleep in something of Cynthy’s.” 

Could this really be her very own self, Kate 
wondered, as she lay in bed an hour later beside 
the calmly sleeping Cynthy? Instead of one of her 
own pretty nightgowns she had on a wrapper of 
Cynthy’s. Bobby and Jenny were sleeping quietly in 
a trundle-bed at the foot of that in which were 
the two girls. 

She heard Mr. Higgins come in and undress /in 
the dark in the same room, talking the while to his 
wife of a shooting-affray which had taken place at 
the Louvre that evening between two drunken cow- 
boys. Kate put her hands over her ears, feeling 
like an eavesdropper. After awhile she took her 
hands away again. The talking had stopped. She 
lay wide awake, nervous as a cat, trying to dis- 
tinguish the different breathing of each of the five 
persons in the room with her. Oh, if she only dared 
slip out and go to sleep on the wash-bench in the 
grape-arbour. She envied John. He at least had 
his liberty. 

At last she fell asleep. When she awoke the sun 


AH Night at “Higgins’s” 


85 


was shining brightly into the room. She sat up 
and saw to her relief that she was alone. Cynthy 
was gone from her side; the trundle-bed and the 
big bed were both empty. 

Kate rubbed her sleepy eyes and laughed. The 
good long rest had restored her spirits and keen 
sense of humour. 

“If I could only see mother this very day to 
tell her all about it,” she thought. 

Her trunk had been put inside the room. On top 
of it was the mirror and John’s empty basket. 

“ Thank goodness,” she said aloud, slipping out 
of bed, “ that I didn’t unpack last night. Now, I 
can get away so much quicker.” She wondered at 
her own good spirits, and reflected that it must be 
the mountain air. She did not hear any one moving 
about the house as she dressed, and she guessed 
rightly that the family had all gone out. 

She found the coffee-pot set back on the stove 
where it could be kept warm without boiling. Her 
breakfast was on a plate in the oven. But first of 
all she went out and washed in the clear fresh water 
that was in a pail on the bench in the grape-arbour. 


86 


The Story of Kate 


It was a wonderful morning, and she felt like singing 
and dancing. Now she could understand her 
mother’s longing for the Vermont hills, as she herself 
looked up into the redwood forest that covered the 
mountain. And yet her memory clung loyally to 
the lonely, barren red and purple range she had 
known since a child. After she had eaten her 
breakfast she put on her hat and jacket to go out 
to look for a satisfactory boarding-place. 

She reached the front gate and was about to 
open it, when to her dismay she saw the flutter of 
a pink calico skirt down the road. She had hoped 
to make her arrangements first, before speaking to 
Mrs. Higgins. Then when her plans were once 
made, it would be difficult to alter them. 

“ Going for a constitutional ? ” called Mrs. Hig- 
gins, cheerfully. She carried a market-basket on her 
arm. “ I calculated to be home long ago, but Love, 
the grocer, is such a gossip I couldn’t get away 
before. Found your breakfast in the oven? ” 

Kate had grown a little pale. She felt her posi- 
tion to be a delicate one. “ Mrs. Higgins,” she said, 
locking her hands nervously together in front of 



HIGGINS, CHEERFULLY 






. 


































































































































































































































All Night at “Higgins’s” 87 

her, “ thank you for your kindness very, very much 
indeed, but I guess I can’t stay.” 

“ Can’t stay,” echoed Mrs. Higgins, leaning on 
the gate after she had opened it, “can’t stay?” 
Then in a second her puzzled expression cleared. 
She put her basket on the ground, and extended her 
motherly arms. “ You poor lamb,” she cried, 
“ you’re homesick for your ma, ain’t you ? Come 
right here.” 

But Kate stood still, quite pale with the intensity 
of her emotion. Her mother had never petted her; 
she wasn’t used to being cuddled, and now she was 
embarrassed. “ It isn’t that ; but I think you’re too 
crowded for me, and I think I should like a room 
of my own. You see, I’ve always been accustomed 
to having my own room.” 


CHAPTER V. 

“ ROSE MAY SMITH — MILLINER ” 

The shrewd good-natured eyes of Mrs. Higgins 
watched her a moment. “ I reckon you’re an only 
child, ain’t you, Miss Kate? ” she said, slowly. “ An 
only child is always kind o’ selfish. They don’t want 
to share and be shared with. Ain’t that it? ” 

“ I guess it is,” answered Kate, not knowing why 
it was she had a sudden sense of shame. 

“ Well, go along and take your constitutional,” 
added Mrs. Higgins, “ and think it over. I ain’t one 
to hold a person against their will.” 

Half-way down the road Kate looked back. Mrs. 
Higgins was leaning on the gate, smiling. 

“ What is it ? ” called Kate, timidly. 

“ You’re just that comical, Miss Kate,” Mrs. Hig- 
gins’s pleasant voice floated down, “ so spunky-like.” 

And Kate continued the descent with the con- 


88 


“Rose May Smith — Milliner" 89 


sciousness of being watched all the way by that 
pink-clad, smiling figure. “ I know one thing,” she 
said to herself, almost ready to cry, “ I never could 
feel comfortable living with Mrs. Higgins.” 

The main street looked busy and attractive, as 
she turned into it. Mr. Love, the grocer, raised his 
hat to her, and she gave him a stiff little bow. It 
was not until after she passed that she reflected she 
might have asked his advice in regard to a boarding- 
place. But she did not turn back. She wanted to 
explore for herself. 

A tiny cottage she was passing attracted her 
attention. She stopped in front of it and laughed. 
It was so cunning, nestled among the flowers. A 
hedge of pink ivy geranium separated its wee front 
yard from the street. A flower-bordered path, so 
narrow that two people could not walk abreast in 
it, led up to the door, on which was a sign bearing 
the name, Rose May Smith, and below the name 
the word, Milliner. Lace curtains were drawn back 
at the front window in order to show a number of 
trimmed hats in a glass case. Several bunches of 
artificial violets were pinned on the curtains. 


90 


The Story of Kate 


It was so funny to think of a milliner-shop in 
Green Hollow that Kate forgot her own errand 
as she walked on and tried to figure out if such an 
establishment would pay, and who could be Miss 
Rose May Smith’s customers. She walked on until 
she reached the schoolhouse, the last building on 
the street. She had sought it instinctively as her 
one refuge. But now she stood in front of it, and 
realised that it was the last place for her to try to 
get board. “ Unless I sleep on a bench and board 
myself,” she said, with a laugh, “ I must be going 
daft.” She turned to go back to consult Mr. Love, 
the grocer. He might know some one who would 
take her. 

As she passed the Louvre again she glanced across, 
and saw a man sitting on the broad sky-blue veranda. 
He was smoking a pipe, his feet were on the railing, 
and his slouch gray hat was pulled well down over 
his eyes. What could there be familiar about him 
that he should arrest her attention? And yet Kate 
walked slower and slower, hesitating; then all at 
once she turned and crossed the street to the Louvre, 
and stood on the sidewalk in front. 


“Rose May Smith — Milliner 99 91 

“ Why, Mr. Hitchcock,” she cried, “ do you live 
in Green Hollow now ? ” 

The man addressed stared a moment, then came 
quickly down to shake hands with her. “ Well, 
well,” he said, with the genial smile she remembered, 
“ so you’re here, too. Are your father and mother 
with you? Come over to visit friends, I suppose.” 

“ No,” she answered, “ I’m the new school- 
teacher, and, oh, Mr. Hitchcock, do you suppose 
you could help me out? I want to find a boarding- 
house, and I don’t know where to look.” 

“ We’ll find the place if it’s in this town, and 
if not we’ll have to make it,” he said, with hearty 
sympathy. “ Now just a minute. Turn square 
around. Look up there. Isn’t that a picture for 
you?” 

Above the opposite side of the street the cattle 
were climbing up the mountainside, and the blue sky 
gleamed through the trunks of the redwoods at the 
ridge. How fresh, how cool, how lofty it looked! 
Kate felt that the boarding-place did not matter very 
much for the moment, and she was ashamed of the 
anxiety which had made her blind to the splendid 


92 


The Story of Kate 


landscape about her. She looked at her companion 
with some timidity. He seemed strange to her and 
unlike most men, in calling attention to the view 
when there was any practical matter to be attended 
to. She felt that he had for the moment forgotten 
her presence. There was a remote look in his lifted 
eyes and an expression of wistfulness on his face 
which she felt that she understood in some vague 
way she could not have explained to herself. 

He sighed and took off his hat, and ran his hand 
through his heavy hair with the troubled gesture 
she remembered. 

“ A year lost,” he said. His expression changed 
suddenly as he noticed that she was watching him,, 
and he smiled. “ Well, Miss Kate,” he said, “ you 
see I remember your name quite as well as you did 
mine, which is very polite of us both, don’t you 
think so?” He laughed, so that she joined in. 
“ And now,” he continued, “ you want a boarding- 
place. Where shall we go first? Let me see. Why, 
of course, we’ll ask Rose May.” He raised his voice 
and called, “ Rose May, Rose May.” 

While they had been standing there, Kate was 


“Rose May Smith — Milliner” 93 


conscious of a girl’s voice singing some simple song 
in the Louvre. And when Rose May appeared, she 
knew at once that the voice must have been hers. 
She came out carrying a dustpan and broom and 
wearing a large apron. 

“ Rose May,” asked Mr. Hitchcock, “ don’t you 
know a good boarding-place for this young lady ? ” 

The girl shook her head. 

Mr. Hitchcock was disappointed. “ I thought 
surely you could help me out. I’m afraid we’ll 
have to try the Widow Parks on the street back, 
but it’s scarcely the place for a girl. She’s a good 
respectable woman, but a number of ranch hands 
take their meals with her. Still, we might go and 
ask her.” 

They walked on, Mr. Hitchcock calling her atten- 
tion as they went to the curve of the street. “ Make 
much of your first impressions in a new place,” he 
said ; “ you never forget them no matter what comes 
after. A new place is always an event of great im- 
portance to me. I love to enter a strange city for 
the first time, don’t you? ” 

“ I don’t know,” she answered ; “ I’ve never been 


94 


The Story of Kate 


anywhere, except to the high school in Stockton 
and up to the university.’' 

“ But you’ve seen San Francisco,” he said, “ the 
city I love best.” 

Kate made no reply. His words sent an unhappy 
pang through her heart. Here she was in Green 
Hollow, and she had hoped to be in Berkeley, just 
across the bay from San Francisco at this time. 
They walked on in silence for some moments. Kate 
was puzzled by her companion. His appearance had 
improved since she saw him at the time of the rains. 
The scurvy on his hands and face was gone. He 
wore breeches and jacket of brown corduroy and 
high riding-boots. She remembered his horse, and 
asked after it. 

“ Holly is as pretty as ever,” he said. “ Oh, yes, 
I have her here with me in the stable at the Louvre. 
I named her Holly because I happened to buy her 
one Christmas.” And he laughed heartily. 

“ I often tell father,” said Kate, “ that he gives 
our live stock fancy names just the way I used to 
call my dolls.” 


“ Rose May Smith — Milliner 99 95 

They turned the corner, and he pointed out the 
house to which they were going. 

“ I don’t like it,” cried Kate, drawing back, “ look 
at the chickens running about the front yard. It 
looks so shiftless.” She was ready to cry. 

There were light, quick steps behind them, and, 
turning, they saw Rose May running after them. 
She came up fluttering and breathless, shading her 
eyes with her hand. 

“ I want to say she can board with me,” she said, 
addressing Mr. Hitchcock, “ and she can have the 
parlour, if she don’t mind the hats in the window. 
I couldn’t very well take them out as they’re my 
business.” 

Mr. Hitchcock looked from one girl to the other. 

Kate recalled the tiny cottage, and she had liked 
Rose May the minute she saw her. 

“ I’ll come,” she said; “ who else is there? ” 

“ Just me,” smiled Rose May. 

“ Why, we can have cooperative housekeeping,” 
cried Kate, “ the way the girls do up at the uni- 
versity.” Cooperative housekeeping was one of 
Kate’s young dreams. 


96 


The Story of Kate 


Rose May dimpled and smiled. Kate’s voice im- 
plied something pleasant, although she didn’t quite 
understand. 

Cynthy came from around the corner. She had 
Bobby and Jenny with her. The three had been 
out in the woods and had their arms full of wilt- 
ing wild flowers. To Kate’s dismay the three 
paused. 

“ Hullo, Cynthy,” cried Mr. Hitchcock, “ this 
young lady is your new teacher.” 

“ I reckon I know it,” said Cynthy ; “ she boards 
with we’uns.” 

Kate felt her face crimson as she met Mr. Hitch- 
cock’s look of surprise. “ I came last night,” she 
explained, “ and father took me to Mrs. Higgins’s, 
but she didn’t have a room for me, so I had to go 
somewhere else.” 

“ Ain’t you coming back ? ” said Cynthy. 

Kate shook her head, feeling very unhappy, and 
as if she were in the wrong, when she knew she 
wasn’t. 

“ I’ll tell ma if you want me to,” said Cynthy, 


“Rose May Smith — Milliner 99 97 

and went on with Bobby and Jenny. Kate knew that 
she was deeply hurt. 

“ Mrs. Higgins is a good friend of mine,” re- 
marked Mr. Hitchcock ; “ there isn’t a thing she 
wouldn’t do for you, but I guess you two girls will 
be happiest by yourselves. How soon is this new 
arrangement to commence ? ” 

“ Right away,” said Rose May ; “ I have my 
sweeping all done, and I’ll just skip work for half 
an hour, and do the dusting later.” 

The three walked back to the cottage, Mr. Hitch- 
cock chatting pleasantly, Rose May carrying her 
dustpan and broom, and Kate without a word to 
say. 

Mr. Hitchcock left them at the gate. “ Now, 
young ladies, let me know if I can be of any assist- 
ance.” 

“ Yes, sir,” answered Rose May, unlocking the 
door, “ we will.” 

When they were inside and the door was shut, 
Kate did not even look around the little parlour. 
Instead she dropped into the nearest chair and began 
to cry. 


9 8 


The Story of Kate 


“ Oh, what is it ? ” cried Rose May, in dismay. 

“ I’m so mortified,” cried Kate, “ so hu-hu- 
humiliated. I could see Mr. Hitchcock thought I 
was horrid to leave Mrs. Higgins, and Cynthy’s 
feelings were hurt. I know it. But I couldn’t sleep 
and dress in the same room with five other people, 
and those horrid boys in the next room. Could 
you?” 

“ Of course I couldn’t,” cried Rose May, all sym- 
pathy, “ don’t you mind.” She put down her pan 
and broom, and kissed Kate. 

And from that kiss came the lifelong friendship 
that was to exist between the two girls. 

The cottage consisted of three rooms and an out- 
side shed. This shed Rose May used as a dining- 
room in summer, and a storeroom when the colder 
weather came. She took her guest out to see it. 
There was a tiny table and one chair. 

“ We’ll have to get another chair to match,” said 
she, “ and see here in this cupboard I keep my dishes. 
I always have real pretty dishes; this pink cup is 
for coffee, and this buff is my tea-cup. You can 
have your choice.” 


“Rose May Smith — Milliner 99 99 


There was no glass in the shed window, nor was 
there any door, but this made it all the pleasanter. 
“ It was like eating out-of-doors,” Rose May ex- 
plained. In the back yard were two lovely pepper- 
trees with their fern-like foliage and pinkish berries. 

“ Don’t you ever get lonely? ” asked Kate. 

Then it was Rose May’s turn to cry. Her blue 
eyes welled over with tears, and her mouth quivered. 

“ But now,” she said, smiling, “ it’s going to be 
lovely with you.” 

There was a knock at the front door, and they 
hurried to answer it. Mr. Love was there, with a 
big basket of the fruit and other delicacies his store 
afforded. 

“ Mr. Hitchcock says with his compliments for 
your housekeeping,” he announced ; “ where’ll I 
take ’em ? ” 

“ Right out in the kitchen, please,” said Rose May. 

“ Say,” said Mr. Love, when he had thus emptied 
his basket, “ say, I thought you was to board at the 
Higgins’s. She told me so herself this morning.” 

Rose May gave Kate a significant nudge. Mr. 
Love was the gossip of the town. 

L. of C. 


IOO 


The Story of Kate 


“ I just stayed there over night,” said Kate. 

“Found Mrs. Higgins too easy-going, hey?” he 
asked, with a wink. “ Do tell, what was the real 
reason you didn’t stay? Higgins is an ugly fellow. 
I hear tell he whips them two boys of his awful. I 
calculate I never laid a hand on my Jim since he 
grew up. It takes the spirit out of a boy to lick 
’im.” 

“ Jim’s an awful lot bigger than you,” said Rose 
May, and clapped her hand over her mouth with a 
giggle, knowing she had said something she 
shouldn’t. 

“ Well, Jim he ain’t never been stunted in his 
growth by lickings,” retorted Mr. Love, shifting his 
basket under his arm. “ I must be going. You’ll 
find them ripe olives good.” 

Rose May could stay no longer, but must hurry 
back to do her dusting at the Louvre. 

“ I work there mornings,” she explained, “ helping 
out Mrs. Bennett. It’s her husband keeps the 
Louvre. I sweep and dust and take care of the beds 
and stay to wait on the table and help with the 


“ Rose May Smith — Milliner 99 io i 

dishes. I get real good pay, and have all my after- 
noons and evenings to myself.” 

Just after she had started back and Kate was 
alone in the house, there was another knock on the 
front door. She looked out of the window, and 
saw a wagon in front of the house with Aaron and 
a man she didn’t know on the seat, and her trunk 
and basket in the back. 

She opened the door and found Billy. “ Ma says 
as you might like your things. Shall we bring ’em 
right in? ” 

“ Yes, if you please,” said Kate; “ I am very 
much obliged.” She was too embarrassed to say 
much, and stood aside to let them carry in the trunk 
and basket and the old mirror, which she had for- 
gotten having. 

“How much is it?” she asked the teamster, 
timidly. 

“ It ain’t nothing,” said Aaron; “ he’s a friend of 
ma’s. That’s why she yelled to him when she seen 
him going by. She says there ain’t no use paying for 
a thing when a friend’d just as soon do it as not.” 

That afternoon Kate mustered up her courage to 


102 


The Story of Kate 


go to call on Mrs. Higgins and thank her for send- 
ing down the trunk. She also wished to ask if 
anything had been seen of John. 

She found Cynthy on the back porch looking over 
a big washpan of greens. Mrs. Higgins was rocking 
just within the doorway. 

“ Well, Miss Kate,” she said, pleasantly, “ I kind 
of expected you.” 

Kate sat down on the stoop beside Cynthy. “ I 
want to thank you for sending down my trunk,” she 
said, her face flushed with embarrassment. 

“ Oh, that’s all right,” said Mrs. Higgins ; “ do 
tell now about your finding out Rose May. I declare, 
Cynthy, if your ma ain’t getting to be as inquisitive 
as Love.” 

“ He was over,” said Kate, laughing. 

“ I might have knowed it,” said Mrs. Higgins ; 
“ what’d he come for ? ” 

So Kate told her about Mr. Love, and then from 
that went on to tell all about seeing Mr. Hitchcock 
and meeting Rose May. To her surprise she found 
that her nervousness and embarrassment had gone, 
and that she could talk quite freely. She saw that 


“Rose May Smith — Milliner 99 103 

Mrs. Higgins was not inclined to be resentful nor 
to take her guest to task in any way. There was 
something very large and tolerant in her nature, 
and from that afternoon Kate always loved her. 

Mrs. Higgins was interested in hearing about her 
acquaintance with Mr. Hitchcock. 

“ He must have come direct from your ranch to 
Green Hollow,” she commented. “ We was all 
naturally curious about him. Then Love (that long 
nose of his always finds out everything), he learned 
the stranger almost got snow-blind up in the Klon- 
dike, and the doctor said as he wasn’t to work for a 
year, but just rest his eyes, and so he come here.” 

“ What do you suppose his work is? ” asked Kate, 
eagerly. 

“ Well, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Higgins, “ I 
don’t know. He’s something out of the ordinary, 
I’ll be bound. Sometimes, I ’low he’s what they 
calls a professional man, a lawyer or doctor-like, but 
Love he says no, ’tain’t that. It’s more likely he’s 
a book-writer or one of them actor-fellows. Love 
is awful knowing.” 

“ I think he must be a writer,” said Kate, jumping 


104 The Story of Kate 

to the conclusion that pleased her. She remembered 
how quick he had been to see beauty about him. 
“ Why, Mrs. Higgins,” she cried, her eyes bright 
with delight, “ he’s a poet, of course ! ” 

“ I ’low you’re right,” answered Mrs. Higgins, 
admiring Kate’s shrewdness. 

She urged Kate to stay to supper, but Rose May 
would expect her and she must go. Nothing had 
been seen of John, and this made her feel blue, not 
only for the sake of the old cat, but because of 
Chung’s grief when he should learn his friend was 
lost. 

Cynthy had not said much during the afternoon, 
but she walked down to the gate with Kate and 
picked her some roses. Kate recalled the girl’s 
rare smile as they were carrying the bucket from 
the well the night before, and she wished that Cynthy 
would look at her so again. 

But Cynthy’s beautiful face never lost its habitual 
gravity this afternoon, and Kate knew instinctively 
that she, alone of all the Higginses, was deeply hurt. 
As she walked home she appreciated for the first 


“Rose May Smith — Milliner" 105 

time to the full the hospitality that had been shown 
her. 

That evening and the following day, which was 
Saturday, were full of busy planning and doing for 
the two girls. Sunday they went to the one church 
in Green Hollow. During the week it was the 
public hall, and on Sundays the different denomina- 
tions took their turn at special services. This hall 
was in the block above the grocery and the post-office, 
and had a small organ. Kate found out that every 
one went to church, and Rose May had a class in 
Sunday school. 

School opened Monday, and the day found Kate 
nervous and anxious to begin her new duties, and 
have the hard work of forming the various grades 
of a district school over with. She went very early, 
long before it was time, and was thankful, indeed, 
that she had done so, when she unlocked the door 
and discovered the litter the birds and squirrels had 
made just over Sunday, for only Saturday she and 
Rose May had swept and dusted the room. Some 
boys had been in and scrawled on the blackboard 
and turned her table upside down, and set the bottle 


106 The Story of Kate 

of ink on the ledge above the door. Fortunately the 
desks were nailed to the floor and could not be 
moved. 

Kate locked the door and dragged the table to 
it. Then she set the chair on top, and so climbed 
up and got the bottle of ink. It was not long before 
she had the room once more in order, and, as a final 
touch, placed the flowers she had brought from Rose 
May’s garden in a cracked tumbler of water. She 
was conscious that for nearly half an hour the chil- 
dren were about. The door was partly opened, and 
then shut to with a giggle. Faces peered in at the 
window and vanished, but she sat at the desk writing, 
and did not look up. At one minute of nine she 
rang the bell, and her pupils came slowly in by ones 
and twos, giving her either bashful or resentful 
glances. 

There were twenty-five in all. The five in the 
senior class she judged to be near her own age, if 
not more in the case of one large, serious girl whose 
name was Mary Johnson, and who had ridden over 
on her pony. The others ranged down to several 
little a-b-c tots, and she saw that the five Higgins 


“Rose May Smith — Milliner 99 107 

children were there. That first morning seemed 
unending. At half-past ten the younger children 
had recess for five minutes, and at twelve school 
was dismissed until two o’clock. It lasted only a 
little while in the afternoon, for the first day was 
necessarily the starting-in time, for the planning of 
classes and discussion of text-books, but Kate was 
quite as tired out as if she had taught all day. 


CHAPTER VI. 

Kate Proves Herself a Disciplinarian 

A month had passed since that first day. School 
was over for the day, and Kate sat alone at her 
desk, correcting the spelling-exercise papers. Two 
of the younger children had been told to stay because 
they had been naughty. Mary Johnson, who came 
on her pony faithfully every day, remained to write 
her lesson in English for the next morning. She 
lived on a ranch where there was too much work 
to be done for her to take time to study at home. 

At the blackboard a tall, lanky boy stood writing 
the word scissors. He had already written it twenty- 
five times when Kate spoke. 

“ Rub it all out and begin over again, John. You 
spelled it wrong just then.” 

The boy looked as if he couldn’t believe her, and 

ran his eye down the column until his attention was 
108 


Kate Proves a Disciplinarian 109 

caught by the twenty-first word. He had omitted 
the “ c” He hesitated. 

“ Guess I’ll just rub out the last four,” he sug- 
gested. 

“ Rub it all out and commence over again,” said 
Kate, in a tone that made the two guilty youngsters 
quake, for fear it would be their turn next to receive 
a reproof. 

Mary Johnson glanced up and smiled, then con- 
tinued her conscientious plodding. 

The afternoon had been a distressing one. From 
the first Kate had had to suffer not a little from 
Aaron’s joke about the scissors. With one or two 
exceptions every boy in the class had asked sooner 
or later how she spelled the word. She had directed 
each questioner to the big dictionary on the window 
shelf with a calmness of demeanour she was far from 
feeling. Several times she found old scissors on 
her desk, and once Bobby Higgins, who was too 
young to be at school any way, came proudly up to 
show her a pair of rusty, broken scissors hanging by 
a string around his neck. She only smiled at the 


no The Story of Kate 

innocent little fellow, but she felt her anger rise 
toward her tormentors. 

This afternoon it had been John Bennett who had 
inquired the spelling of the word, and she had 
directed him as usual to the dictionary. As he 
crossed clumsily over, a foolish grin on his face the 
while, a general titter went around the room. Kate 
had an inspiration. 

“ I think the best way for you to remember how 
to spell that word, John,” she had said, pleasantly, 
“ is for you to write it one hundred times on the 
blackboard, and the second boy who asks can write 
it two hundred times, and the third boy three hum 
dred, and so on.” 

The task seemed simple enough at first to John. 
But soon he began to get confused and write the 
word wrong in his haste to get through. A titter 
from some watchful mate would apprise him of his 
mistake, and he would be obliged to rub it out and 
begin over again. 

School was dismissed, and still John, angry, con- 
fused, conscious of the relentless pair of gray eyes 


Kate Proves a Disciplinarian in 

that surveyed his work coldly from time to time, 
toiled on. 

Now he turned around sullenly. “ Chalk’s all 
gone,” he announced. 

Kate lifted the cover of her desk, and silently 
extended a new crayon to him. 

An hour passed, at the end of which Mary Johnson 
put away her writing, said good night, and went out 
to swing herself into her saddle and ride home, and 
the two youthful culprits were sternly bidden to 
put away their spelling-books and to depart. 

John could hear his friends whistling outside, and 
knew they were making contemptuous remarks at 
his cowardice in staying. He foresaw he would 
have to whip every one to prove his valour. He 
did not dare to disobey the teacher, for he knew she 
would not hesitate to report the matter to his parents. 
He began to work doggedly now, and slowly. 

Kate put aside the corrected spelling-papers, and 
taking a pencil began to draw the eucalyptus-tree 
as she saw its trunk and lower branches through the 
open door. It reminded her of the six eucalyptus- 
trees at home. How they had bowed and bent in 


I 12 


The Story of Kate 


those spring rains! In imagination she could see 
them plainly; the first twisted back, as if loath to be 
driven from its fellows, the third and fourth pressing 
together, seeming to push the second tree, all their 
tops mingled and white in the mist, the last two with 
broken branches. Her own mood was wild and 
wayward, and she took pleasure in trying to sketch 
the trees as she remembered them. The first month 
of her teaching had passed, and left her disheartened. 
She found the discipline more difficult to maintain 
than she had even dreamed of, and the close of the 
day invariably left her tired out. She had more 
trouble with the younger boys than with the older 
ones. These last had made the life of the former 
teacher, a young man, miserable; but chivalry, un- 
couth though they were, kept them from tormenting 
the slender and resolute girl whose courage appar- 
ently never faltered. 

But it was not the discipline nor the actual work 
which troubled Kate. It was the secret admission 
to her own soul that she didn’t like teaching. That 
was the appalling fact. It was her last thought at 
night; it woke with her in the morning. She felt 


Kate Proves a Disciplinarian 113 

that her nature must be inherently wicked not to 
like what should be her pleasure and duty in the 
future. She almost shuddered at herself. But the 
fact remained. She did not like to teach, and she 
knew now that she never would like it better. 

“ Not if I taught a hundred years,” Kate told 
herself mentally, in passionate revolt. 

She pushed away the sketch and stared out-of- 
doors. There was nothing for her to do but to teach. 
Yet how hollow now seemed her ambition to prepare 
herself for it at the university! There was Rose 
May. She was happy because she loved her milli- 
nery. She was happy as her pretty name when it 
came to trimming hats. She enjoyed her work at 
the Louvre because she had something to look 
forward to, in the building up of a profession she 
loved. She had insisted upon retrimming her 
friend’s hat. Kate looked at it now, as it hung in 
the open closet, a new black velvet bow on top and 
some violets under the brim. 

A prolonged sigh broke in upon her meditations, 
and she smiled as Johnny Bennett shifted wearily 
from one foot to the other. 


The Story of Kate 


1 14 

“What is it, John?” she asked. 

“ Nothin’,” he answered, sombrely, “ I’m about 
wore out. I tell you I’m no longer sure how to 
spell this here old word, dog-gone it.” 

“ S-c-i-s-s-o-r-s,” spelled Kate, briskly, a sparkle 
of mischief in her eyes, “ you’ve only ten more times 
now to write it, if you don’t make a mistake again.” 

She went around and closed and locked the win- 
dows for the night, against marauding squirrels, 
picked up the scraps of paper, dusted her desk, and 
flung away the wilted flowers that the children had 
brought her. She saw Cynthy Higgins waiting 
outside to walk home with her. 

“ Come in, Cynthy,” she called. 

Cynthy came slowly in. The breeze blew a piece 
of paper off the scrap-basket to her feet, and she 
stooped and picked it up. 

“ Here,” she said. 

“ Oh, throw it away,” Kate answered, carelessly, 
“ it’s some trees at my home. I was trying to 
remember how they looked.” 

But Cynthy folded the paper and put it in 
her pocket. 


Kate Proves a Disciplinarian 115 

“ There,” said Johnny Bennett, explosively, “ is 
that right this time ? ” 

Kate glanced down the irregular rows. “ Yes, 
you can go,” she answered. 

Johnny Bennett went to the nail on which hung 
his solitary cap. As he went out of the door he 
looked back with a grin. His release brought back 
his good nature. “ I ain’t never going to say 
scissors again,” he shouted, and joined his waiting 
fellows with a wild whoop of long suppressed 
spirits. 

“ I reckon you don’t like teaching,” said Cynthy, 
in her soft voice, watching Kate, as she put on her 
hat. 

“ What makes you think that ? ” asked Kate, in 
some alarm, hoping she had not betrayed her secret 
discontent. 

“ I don’t know,” said Cynthy ; “ I reckon I knew 
what you was like from the first.” She continued to 
regard Kate with her grave, beautiful eyes, and did 
not misjudge her. It wasn’t that Kate disliked 
her pupils or was lazy. It was just teaching. 
Cynthy understood. She did not like school herself. 


1 16 


The Story of Kate 


“ I’m very fortunate to get a school at all,” said 
Kate, “ but perhaps I’m a little tired to-night. Let’s 
go on, Cynthy. Will you take my books while I 
lock the door? ” 

Cynthy insisted on carrying the books all the way 
to the cottage. For the first few days after Kate 
had left the Higginses Cynthy had seemed to avoid 
her. Kate felt that it was not dislike as much as 
it was timidity. Cynthy had taken her departure 
as a rebuff, and for awhile looked at Kate with the 
startled and timid gaze of a deer that has been fright- 
ened. Lately, however, she had come back of her 
own accord and waited to walk home from school 
with Kate every night. 

When they reached the gate of the little cottage, 
Kate invited her companion in for tea. 

Cynthy shook her head in refusal. “ I’m coming 
down to-night with Ma. She’s got something good 
for you’uns.” She went on down the street. 

“ Hallo, Cynthy,” said Mr. Hitchcock, as she 
passed him. He was on horseback and had paused 
to give Holly a drink at the public trough. 

She smiled in reply. She never could have told 


Kate Proves a Disciplinarian u 7 

what prompted her to draw out from her pocket 
the sketch of the eucalyptus-trees, for she could not 
divine the effect this simple act of hers was to have 
upon Kate’s future. Perhaps it was her loving 
pride in her friend and the fact that she, un- 
trained in art, yet perceived with the sympathy of 
her own wild woods knowledge that the sketch was 
good. 

She stepped out into the roadway and handed the 
paper up to Mr. Hitchcock. He took it, puzzled. 

“Why, where did you get this?” he asked, in 
surprise. 

“ Miss Kate did it,” answered Cynthy, rubbing 
her bare feet off on the grass. She had stepped 
into a puddle of water. Cynthy was a tall girl, 
with her dress down to her ankles, but she still went 
barefoot except Sundays. 

“ Thank you, Cynthy,” said Mr. Hitchcock, hand- 
ing the sketch back to her; “ I was glad to see it.” 
He touched his horse with his whip, and rode 
briskly on, and soon she saw him on the winding- 
road that went by her home up into the mountain. 

“ I guess I’ll ask Pa for a horse,” thought Cynthy, 


ii 8 The Story of Kate 

with the serene conviction that her father would 
refuse her nothing. 

That evening Kate and Rose May sat working in 
their little parlour. They had had supper and 
washed and put away the dishes and set the table 
for breakfast. Being young, they liked to sleep to 
the limit in the morning. 

Rose May sang to herself as she sat in a rocking- 
chair trimming over a hat for the, practice. It was 
a Leghorn, and she was draping pale yellow mull 
on it. 

Kate’s straight-backed chair was drawn square up 
to the other side of the table. She was proving the 
arithmetical problems she was going to give her 
senior class to-morrow. All her passionate mood 
of revolt of the afternoon was gone, and her face 
looked only serious and rather tired in the lamplight. 

They could hear Mr. Love practising on his cornet 
across the street. All their evenings except Sunday, 
when they went to church, were passed in this 
fashion. Generally before they went to bed they 
would step outside for a few moments to inhale the 
fragrance of the flowers and the fresh air of the 


Kate Proves a Disciplinarian 1 19 

mountain night. Down the street they would see 
the Louvre brilliantly lighted. Sometimes they 
heard music, and once several shots fired in quick 
succession, startling the quiet night. But their life 
was serene, and they had no fear. 

There was a knock on the front door. 

“ Oh,” cried Kate, conscience-stricken, “ I forgot 
to tell you Cynthy said she and her mother were 
coming down this evening.” 

“ Well, I declare,” said Mrs. Higgins, as Rose 
May opened the door, “ don’t you look cosy in 
here? ” She came in, beaming and resplendent in a 
* freshly ironed calico gown of her favourite colour, 
pink. “ I brought you a bite of my loaf-cake,” she 
continued, squeezing herself into the rocking-chair. 
“ It was real nice and light when we started, but 
I reckon Cynthy’s held it too close. That child never 
did have no respect for loaf-cake, nohow. She’d 
just as soon have a cookie,” smiled Mrs. Higgins, 
untying her bonnet-strings. 

“ We’re ever so much obliged,” said Rose May ; 
“ I’ll go right out and put it in the cake-box.” 

“ I must look out and see she doesn’t eat it all 


120 


The Story of Kate 


up when my back’s turned,” remarked Kate, diving 
into the bedroom for her stocking-bag, in order to 
do some mending. 

“ You’re just that comical, Miss Kate,” laughed 
Mrs. Higgins. 

“ You haven’t seen anything of my cat, have you, 
Mrs. Higgins ? ” asked Kate, as she took a chair. 
She slipped her fingers through the hole in the toe 
of her stocking and shook her head. “ I hate to 
darn,” she said. 

Cynthy rubbed her slender bare feet together with 
satisfaction. She was seldom troubled with holes 
in her stockings. 

“ No, sir,” answered Mrs. Higgins, “ we ain’t 
never set eyes on the old cat from that day to this. 
Like as not he’s 'turned up home.” 

“ Don’t you want to see through the cottage?” 
asked Rose May. 

Mrs. Higgins was delighted, and admired every- 
thing about the little cottage. They showed her the 
kitchen and the out-door dining-room, and the bed- 
room, which they had made most attractive. This 
room had two side windows, and they had put up 


Kate Proves a Disciplinarian 12 1 

ruffled curtains of white muslin dotted with pink and 
blue bachelor’s-buttons. The material was cheap, 
and they had made them themselves, and laundered 
them beautifully, so that only the green in the 
flowers faded, and that so slightly it was prettier. 

“ I couldn’t ’a’ done it better myself,” announced 
Mrs. Higgins. 

They had made covers of the same material for 
the wash-stand and bureau, and put pads of cotton 
under the thin white. 

“ Our bedspread is rather worn,” said Rose May, 
“ but it’s clean.” 

“ Land, child,” rejoined Mrs. Higgins, “ when 
you’re my age, you won’t bother about white spreads. 
You’ll get calico, and get it dark, so it won’t show 
the dirt.” 

They went back into the parlour, Rose May with 
the lamp. It was their only one. They generally 
used miners’ candles to undress by. These candles 
were cheap and lasted a long time. Kate said lots 
of the girls up at the university used candles in pref- 
erence, and she wished they had pretty holders. 

There was a knock on the door, and Rose May, 


122 The Story of Kate 

who was leading the way, nearly dropped the lamp 
in her fright. 

“ Who can it be ? ” she gasped ; “ it must be nearly 
nine o’clock.” 

“ It’s all of that,” said Mrs. Higgins; “ Cynthy 
and I got started right late.” 

“ Why, we never have any one come to see us,” 
added Kate. “ You’re our first visitors.” 

“ Why don’t you open the door and find out ? ” 
asked Cynthy. 

But the other three paid no attention to her. They 
thought some drunken miner or cowboy from the 
Louvre had strayed into their little yard. 

“ Let’s put out the lamp and all keep perfectly 
still,” suggested Rose May, tremulously. 

“ You girls stay back,” said Mrs. Higgins; “ I’ll 
send the impudent feller about his business.” 

She opened the door suddenly, and the lamplight 
illumined the stalwart figure o f Mr. Hitchcock. 

“ Well, I’ll be bound,” exclaimed Mrs. Higgins, 
“ come right in.” 

“ Did I frighten you?” asked he, laughing at 
the three girls drawn close together. “ This is a 


Kate Proves a Disciplinarian 123 

pleasant surprise to find you and Cynthy here, too, 
Mrs. Higgins.” 

“Ain’t it?” she assented, genially. “Set right 
down in this chair, and you girls bring in another 
chair.” Her hospitality made her take unconsciously 
upon herself all the honours of the cottage. She 
managed to whisper to Rose May, as she bustled 
about, “ You ain’t got no lemons to make lemonade, 
have you ? ” 

“ Yes,” whispered Rose May. 

“ All right,” whispered Mrs. Higgins, “ I’ll help 
you make it. It’s real lucky I brought down that 
pound-cake. Gentlemen always expect something 
to eat, my mother used to say.” 

Mr. Hitchcock had taken the chair offered him, 
and placed his hat on the table. “ You've made it 
as homelike as can be, Miss Kate,” he remarked, 
looking about him. “ What’s that Mrs. Higgins is 
saying about men always wanting something to 
eat?” 

“ Land sakes, if you ain’t got sharp ears,” cried 
Mrs. Higgins, laughing. “ You’re going to have 


124 The Story of Kate 

some cake that will melt in your mouth, if I say 
it as shouldn’t.” 

The tiny room seemed crowded now that it con- 
tained five people. Mr. Hitchcock’s kindly gaze saw 
every detail : the glass case Rose May rented from 
the druggist, in which to display her millinery; 
Kate’s two shelves of books ; the unframed pictures 
pinned on the wall. 

“ Where did you girls get that mirror ? ” he asked, 
with sudden interest, rising to go over and examine 
it. “ It’s a beauty. You’ll have to get it made 
over sometime.” 

“ Made over,” laughed Rose May ; “ you can’t 
make over glass.” 

“ I mean the frame,” he answered. “ That carv- 
ing is exquisite, but the gold wants to be done over.” 

So Kate told him the history of it, and where she 
found it, and he was much interested, and agreed 
with her that it was strange people should have 
planted only two kinds of roses. After this, how- 
ever, the conversation languished. The three girls 
and Mrs. Higgins were filled with but one emotion, 
and that was curiosity. The atmosphere of the 


Kate Proves a Disciplinarian 125 

little parlour was charged with it. Perhaps Mr. 
Hitchcock felt this, for he suddenly flung back his 
head and laughed. 

“ I see you’re all wondering why I came,” he said. 
Kate let her darning fall into her lap, and clasped 
her hands tightly. She had a feeling that at last she 
was to learn why Mr. Hitchcock had always puz- 
zled her, what was the mystery that surrounded 
him, and if he were really a poet as she had sur- 
mised. 


CHAPTER VII. 

In Which the Two Girls Have a Terrible 
Fright 

“ I’m going to put the matter before you, Mrs. 
Higgins,” he resumed, “ and then you must tell 
these young ladies and me what you think of my 
plan. It should please Miss Kate, for it’s a kind 
of cooperative plan.” 

Kate laughed at this little joke at her expense. 
“ I do believe I feel for once as curious as Love 
there across the road,” said Mrs. Higgins, beaming. 
“ Speak right out, Mr. Hitchcock.” 

“ I don’t believe you know that I am an artist 
by profession,” began Mr. Hitchcock, when he was 
interrupted by a little cry from Kate. 

She knew him now. The year she had been at the 
university she had gone to an exhibition of his in 
San Francisco. William H. Hitchcock, — that was 

126 


The Girls Have a Terrible Fright 127 

his name in full. How she had stood before those 
splendid canvases and seen into a new world, had 
felt unutterable longings rise in her, visions and 
fancies that sent her home that evening to find her 
studies dull. There was one picture, her favourite, 
the return of the sheep at sunset, the illumined dust, 
the quiet pool in the foreground, the old shepherd, 
and his eager dog. 

Now, she understood it all, why he had said that 
real things could be unreal, why he had said he would 
rather a daughter of his should be able to tell the 
colour of dust than to be proficient in mathematics. 

Mr. Hitchcock was waiting for her to speak, 
watching her closely with his bright, peculiar eyes. 
He saw that she was all in a tremble, that his state- 
ment, which meant little to the others, meant much 
to her. “ The child is an artist,” he said to himself. 
“ Well, she shall not starve if I have anything to 
say.” 

Kate longed to tell him she had seen some of his 
work, but she was tongue-tied with shyness. 

“ But I’m not doing any work now,” he continued, 
as she did not speak, “ because I went up to the 


128 


The Story of Kate 


Klondike in the big rush that went up there first. 
When I at last got away there was something wrong 
with my eyes. I could paint only a little while, and 
everything would blur. The long and the short of 
it was that my doctor sent me down here with the 
injunction not to paint for a year if I ever wanted 
to work again.” 

“ You must have come near having snow-blind- 
ness. Love got it out of you, and he told me,” put 
in Mrs. Higgins. “ Poor man! and your eyes look 
as bright as anybody’s.” 

“ Looks are deceiving,” rejoined Mr. Hitchcock, 
quite as gaily as if his were not the eyes in question. 
“ So I brought down no canvases nor brushes, and 
at times I’ve been nearly wild at the views I’ve had 
and no brush to do them. This afternoon the 
thought came to me : Here I am loafing around, ac- 
complishing nothing except regret at the loss of a 
year, when I might be teaching these young ladies 
something. I wouldn’t do any of the work myself. 
I’d just criticise, the way we teachers do, Miss Kate. 
I sent off an order to San Francisco this afternoon 
for materials, and as soon as they come we’ll begin 


The Girls Have a Terrible Fright 129 

the lessons. Now, what do you all think of my 
plan? ” 

“ I don’t see anything cooperative about it,” sug- 
gested Kate, shyly. 

“ I haven’t forgotten that,” he answered ; “ you 
see I have quite a head for business. For every 
hour I teach you girls, you are to read aloud to me. 
I used to get Rose May to read, but she would 
forget.” 

Rose May blushed and hung her pretty head. 
“ You never told me how bad your eyes were. I 
thought you were a little lazy, too,” she said, dim- 
pling, “ and I had so much to do.” 

“ I suppose I have given the impression of being 
a lazy fellow,” he said. “ You were quite right not 
to indulge me under the circumstances, Rose May, 
but I felt my loss of a year’s work too keenly to 
say much about my defective sight until to-night, 
when I realised how selfish a man may become.” 

“ Love, he’ll just about die to think I know some- 
thing he don’t,” said Mrs. Higgins, “ and I won’t 
let on a word to him. He’s been that cur’ous about 
you. ’Lowed you were an actor, like as not.” 


The Story of Kate 


130 

They talked some time over the proposed lessons, 
and then Mr. Hitchcock rose to go, but they made 
him sit down again and have some lemonade and 
cake. Still all were a little constrained until after 
he had gone. Then they settled down to a merry 
visit, and drank what remained of the lemonade and 
ate most of the cake. Kate’s quiet mood had gone. 
She fairly danced about the little room, recited 
poetry in a mock-dramatic way, tried on all Rose 
May’s best hats, and put a wreath of artificial scarlet 
poppies on Cynthy’s brown hair, and told her that 
some day she would paint her picture that way. 

Mrs. Higgins laughed until the tears rolled down 
her face, and she ate so much more than her share 
of the pound-cake that she was obliged to promise 
to send them down another the next day to redeem 
her self-respect in her own eyes. In the midst of 
their fun they were startled by a tapping on the 
window-pane. It stopped when they were silent, 
and began again as they resumed their gaiety. 

Kate jerked open the door and saw two figures 
scudding down the street. “ It’s two boys,” she 
announced, 


The Girls Have a Terrible Fright 13 1 

“ We might have knowed it was them boys playing 
tick-tack,” said Mrs. Higgins; “ain’t they the 
worst?” she inquired, with an unmistakable air of 
motherly pride. “ Cynthy, we must be a-going. 
What ever will Pa say to come home and find us 
out gadding this time of night? ” 

Cynthy walked silent and content by her mother’s 
side, stepping out of the path into the grass. It 
was wet with dew and lovely and cool to her bare 
feet. She knew that Mr. Hitchcock’s visit had come 
from the slip of paper she had given him in the 
afternoon. He had not mentioned the sketch, how- 
ever, and it was like Cynthy to be secretive when 
he had departed. But she laid away the fragmentary 
drawing in the cigar-box in which she kept her 
treasures. 

The excitement kept Rose May awake that night. 
After Kate had fallen asleep she crept out of bed, 
and sat with a shawl drawn around her by the 
parlour window, looking up at the moonlight on the 
mountain, and too happy in the present to dream of 
the future. This friendship with Kate marked a 
radiant change in her life. The division of expenses 


132 


The Story of Kate 


made by the cooperative plan of housekeeping enabled 
her to save quite a little money. She had even opened 
an account in the small bank. Kate’s scholarly 
ambitions had not made Rose May discontented. 
Her nature was too sweet. Moreover, she loved the 
work she had chosen. To be a milliner meant not 
the mere making of hats and bonnets. It meant 
the putting together of lovely colours, the right selec- 
tion of flowers, but most of all it meant the study 
of human nature, the appreciation of different faces, 
the loving interest and resolve to make every one 
look beautiful. She had only a few customers as 
yet. Still fashion was beginning to creep into 
Green Hollow, so that people thought they must 
have a change both spring and fall. And Rose May 
was so obliging that she never charged her cus- 
tomers anything for trimming, if they bought their 
material of her. But as she said she was not a 
regular milliner as yet, and she was complimented 
that people should be willing to wear hats she 
trimmed. Then her work at the Louvre brought her 
in a good sum every week, so she was not worried. 

She had been left an orphan when she was four- 


The Girls Have a Terrible Fright 133 


teen years old, and ever since then she had sup- 
ported herself by doing housework and drying fruit 
on the ranches during that season. She never 
enjoyed being one of the hands for the fruit-drying. 
It was hard work in the hot sun, and she would be 
tired for weeks after. This year her position at 
the Louvre would not make it necessary for her 
to go away. The little cottage was the only property 
left her by her parents, and as it had never been 
large enough to rent she had continued to live in it. 

She came of very different stock from Kate. 
Her parents had been delicate, luxurious Southern 
people, whose fortune was lost by an unfortunate 
speculation. Then ill health had compelled Mr. 
Smith to go West with his wife and little girl. 
There they had become poorer and poorer, and 
drifted at last into such an out-of-the-world place 
as Green Hollow. Those were sad days, thought 
Rose May, recalling how soon her mother had 
followed the father into the life beyond, leaving 
their little daughter alone and with no near relative 
to whom she could turn. And indeed, Rose May 
never thought of hunting up any relative. Every 


134 The Story of Kate 

one was kind to her, and she found work at once; 
and altogether, she considered, God had been good 
to her. She showed Kate the laces that had 
been her mother’s, the odds and ends of jewelry, 
the fans and little slippers, the white satin wedding- 
dress, folded in blue paper so it would not turn 
yellow. 

“ Mamma had wonderful taste in dress,” Rose 
May had said, with a wistful smile. 

She thought she saw a figure pass on the other 
side of the street. The night was warmer than 
usual, and she had the window open. So she 
bent forward and looked out curiously. She must 
have been mistaken. The other side of the street 
was in shadow, so that she could not see distinctly, 
but had there been any one she surely would have 
heard the steps. She drew the shawl warmly around 
her shoulders and tucked her feet up under her in 
the chair. It wasn’t much fun sitting up when she 
was all alone in the house, but to-night she enjoyed 
it. It was so cosy with Kate sleeping right in the 
next room, and keeping the bed all warm for her 
to creep back into. What a merry evening it had 


The Girls Have a Terrible Fright 135 

been, and Mr. Hitchcock had reproached her for 
not reading to him! She giggled. How could she 
know that great, strong-looking man had such weak 
eyes? “ I ought to be fearfully ashamed of myself,” 
murmured Rose May, “ only I thought then he could 
read if he really wanted to.” 

Surely she heard a footfall, on her side of the 
street. They came on, light, shuffling steps that sent 
a chill over her. 

“ Oh, what is going to happen?” she thought. 
The footsteps stopped in front of the cottage. 
Almost paralysed with fear, she forced herself to 
look out of the window. There in front of the gate 
stood a figure, the moonlight falling on the man’s 
shoulders and putting his face in darkness, for he 
was looking into the yard. 

After a moment he opened the gate and came in. 

There was absolute silence. She waited for his 
knock on the door. She would have been frightened 
less if the person had pounded on it; his stillness 
was more appalling. She felt something more than 
natural almost was about to take place. She fled on 
tiptoe into the next room and shook Kate awake. 


The Story of Kate 


136 

“ Hurry,” she whispered, “ there’s a murderer 
outside. What shall we do? Oh, what shall we 
do?” 

There was a second of ghastly silence. The same 
thought was in the minds of both. The early false 
alarms of the evening, caused by Mr. Hitchcock’s 
call and the boys’ game of tick-tack, had but pre- 
saged the awful reality. 

“Are you sure?” whispered Kate, listening for 
some sound. 

“ I saw him,” moaned Rose May. “ He looked 
like a murderer. He may be in the house this 
minute.” 

They clutched each other, shivering. The silence 
was still unbroken. 

“ Hear the bed shake,” whispered Kate, and began 
to giggle convulsively, although she knew that in 
another minute she and Rose May might both be 
killed. 

“ Let’s slip out the back door while there is still 
time,” suggested Rose May. “ Here’s your dress- 
skirt. Put it around you, and here are your slippers. 
I have on my shawl.” 


The Girls Have a Terrible Fright 137 


But Kate was trembling so she could not get her 
slippers on, so held them in her hand. They 
crept out into the kitchen and through the shed into 
the back yard. All was peaceful and beautiful in 
the moonlight. The two pepper-trees looked like 
lace-work, with the frosted light sifting through. 
Kate sat down on the outside step and managed to 
get her slippers on. She was not as afraid really as 
her companion, but she shook a great deal more. 

Rose May had gone ahead and pushed open the 
high back gate. There was no house back of them, 
only a patch of unbroken woods. But they could 
hide behind the trees. At the gate Kate suddenly 
stood still. A suspicion had dawned upon her. 

I don’t believe you saw anything at all. I 
believe you dreamed it. Anyway, I am going to 
slip around the side of the house and peek,” she 
said. 

And in spite of protestations she did so, followed 
by her quaking companion. 

For one moment, at the corner, she hesitated, 
before she could summon courage to look around. 


138 The Story of Kate 

When she did so, she gave a scream of laughter, and 
danced up and down. 

“ Why didn’t you say he was a Chinaman, 
Rose May? ” she cried. “ It’s our Chung.” 

“ I didn’t think to,” said Rose May. 

The wearied Chinaman, who had established him- 
self for a night’s repose on the door-step, opened his 
eyes in fright. 

“ Dear old Chung,” cried Kate, “ what did you 
come for ? Are they all well at home ? Run around 
back and unlock the front door, Rose May, so we 
can get in. I’ve got to find my slippers.” In her 
excitement she had danced them off. 

While she continued to ply Chung with questions, 
Rose May opened the front door. She had lighted 
the lamp and held it in her hand. She had stopped 
to slip on her skirt, and had the shawl wrapped 
around her. She looked sleepy, and a trifle shame- 
faced. “ How could I know who it was?” she 
said. 

Kate ran into the house to slip on her wrapper 
and toss the skirt of her dress on a chair, while 
Chung brought in the two baskets he had with him. 


The Girls Have a Terrible Fright 139 

“ What’s that in the basket ? ” cried Kate, re- 
appearing. A delightful suspicion crossed her mind. 

*' John,” answered Chung, grinning, “ him come 
clawly home, velly muchee shamee, velly muchee no 
fat no mo’. I scol’ him. I bling him back, hey? ” 

Rose May had gone out into the kitchen, and 
she returned in a little while with some hot tea 
and the remains of the loaf-cake. She knew what 
a tired Chinaman would like, and she longed to 
show kindness to any one belonging to Kate. Chung 
was grateful for the tea. He was almost exhausted, 
for he had walked all the way from home, and John 
was no light burden. Kate had taken the old cat 
out, and held him in her lap. Her face was beaming. 
It seemed so good to see Chung. 

“ Who makee cake? ” said Chung. “ No good.” 

“ Why, don’t you like it ? ” cried Kate. “ A 
friend made it.” 

But Chung pushed the plate away. “ No good,” 
he said, crossly. The real truth was that he recog- 
nised it was excellent cake, and he was jealous. In 
the smaller basket he brought was a citron pound- 
cake of his own making. 


140 The Story of Kate 

He got up and poured himself out a second cup 
of tea. “ Ma not know I go,” he said, slyly, and 
Kate laughed, in spite of her disapproval. Chung 
had acted like a bad boy. 

“ I nu’se John,” he went on. “ When he well, I 
go to Ma’s desk where she keep you lettah. I lead 
when she not see. You say you live in velly lil’ 
house, all flowers with flower-gal. You call her 
Missee Lose, ha, ha,” laughed Chung. “ I see the 
lil’ house to mysel’. I cook and bake fob two days. 
I leave lettah foh Ma. It say, I tek John to Missee 
Kate. Sometime I be back. Two days I t’ink. Zat 
all, ha, ha.” 

Chung and John slept in the kitchen that night, 
and when she woke the next morning it was some 
time before Kate could realise that she wasn’t at 
home. For she heard Chung in the shed singing 
one of his queer singsong Chinese melodies, as 
he prepared breakfast. He had found the eggs and 
flour, and made them the best omelette he ever made, 
and some light biscuit, and baked pears and coffee. 

“ I never had such a good breakfast,” said Rose 
May. “Don’t you feel perfectly elegant, Kate?” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Kate Decides to Become an Artist 

Kate sent Chung and John home that day, but 
not until the early afternoon, as a ranchman who 
was going in that direction could take them most 
of the way. And she did not for a moment think 
of letting the faithful fellow trudge back on foot. 
While the two girls were at their respective duties, 
he swept and dusted the entire cottage, washed the 
windows, and made up a batch of bread and a jar 
of cookies. Finally he went out into the front yard 
to pick a bouquet for the dinner-table. John fol- 
lowed at his heels. 

Some one paused at the gate and said : “If there 
isn’t that Chinaman with his familiar devil.” 

Chung looked up and recognised the stranger who 
had come to the farmhouse with the rains. He 
remembered the bright gold piece. “ Hullo,” he 


142 


The Story of Kate 


said, and stood, grinning, a pleasant homely figure, 
the bright flowers in his hands, the cat at his heels. 

“ Have you come to stay ? ” asked the artist, think- 
ing his young ladies were becoming quite elegant 
if they were going to keep a Chinese cook. He 
laughed out heartily. The two girls amused him 
not a little. 

“ Hullo,” Chung repeated, grinning sympatheti- 
cally. He hadn’t understood the artist’s question. 

Mr. Hitchcock repeated it. 

Chung grinned more than ever. 

“ Missee Kate, she say, ‘ Go back.’ She not likee 
John. Him all samee fliend. She not care. Missee 
Kate she velly like her ma„ She say likee this,” 
here Chung stamped his foot, “ ‘ Chung, you takee 
John home.’ So John he come home long time. I 
nu’se him. Him velly sick. See.” He lifted up 
the cat to show how loose his fur was on him. 

“ Don’t bring any sick cat near me,” warned Mr. 
Hitchcock, “ or I’ll wring its neck. How did you 
ever find your way here? ” 

“ Missee Kate write her ma she live with flower- 


Kate Decides to Become an Artist 143 

gal, Missee Lose, ha, ha,” laughed Chung, delighted 
with his cleverness. 

“ I guess you’re a pretty good boy,” said the 
artist ; “ see if you can catch this. It will help take 
you back to China some day. And Til give you 
another piece if you’ll wring that cat’s neck.” 

Chung put the gold piece in the pocket of his 
blue blouse. He knew the artist was jesting when 
he spoke of killing John. He not only loved John, 
but he knew, further, that there was an evil spirit in 
the old cat which would haunt him, the master, if 
John were to die. Then what would avail all the 
gold pieces in the world if a ghost tormented him? 
So he shook his head, and watched the giver of 
the gold piece gratefully as he strolled. He looked 
again at the yellow coin, which glittered in the sun- 
light. Sometime, when Missee Kate was married, 
he, Chung, was going back to China to spend a year 
with his friends. Then he was coming back to serve 
his young mistress the rest of his days. 

Mr. Hitchcock walked on, thinking of the in- 
mates of the cottage. He was touched by the whole 
affair, the two plucky girls, the faithful Chinaman. 


144 


The Story of Kate 


“ I shall paint better for this enforced rest in 
Green Hbllow,” he said to himself ; “ it has done me 
good to get outside of myself, and learn to know 
these children.” 

Kate would have been surprised and quite morti- 
fied could she have known that the artist classed 
her, the school-teacher, as among the children. She 
was sorry to see Chung go, and the homesick tears 
came to her eyes as he made his preparations to 
go. Chung, however, was blissful. He had had 
his holiday, and was now content to return to his 
work on the ranch. He did not even fear the broom- 
stick. Mrs. Whitney was easier-going than she used 
to be. California had conquered the strenuous New 
England spirit. Sometimes Mrs. Whitney thought 
she was losing her ambition and growing slack. 

“ I really would keep John if he would stay with 
me,” said Kate, not wishing Chung to think her 
ungrateful, “ but you know he will run back to you.” 

Chung answered with his guileless laughter. He 
was willing to give John up to his young mistress, 
but he was happy and proud that the old cat chose 
to stay with him. He was taking home flower-cut- 


Kate Decides to Become an Artist 145 

tings in the basket in which he had brought the cake. 
That noon Kate had gone across to the store which 
combined the post-office, drug-store, and dry-goods 
department and made some purchases with Rose May 
to advise her. She was all in a glow with the happi- 
ness of giving. For her mother she bought a cake 
of fine soap and an ounce bottle of perfume. It was 
violet and quite powerful, the clerk told her. She 
found a pretty dark blue and white tie for her 
father, and for Chung a new blouse and trousers 
of denim. Then she was extravagant enough 
to buy a small keg of ripe olives, which had just 
been received by Mr. Love. She knew what a treat 
they would be on the ranch. Rose May, too, be- 
came infected with the spirit of giving, and charged 
to her account with Mr. Love a small jar of pre- 
served ginger for Chung, and sent Mrs. Whitney a 
piece of old lace that had been her mother’s. And 
neither she nor Mrs. Whitney knew what a rare 
design the lace had, nor its value. 

It was nearly ten days before Mr. Hitchcock’s 
order to San Francisco was received. The Saturday 
following its arrival, he came out from the Louvre 


146 The Story of Kate 

to meet the three girls as they came along the street. 
His arm was thrust through three light camp-stools. 
In the other hand he carried three pads of paper, 
and from his pockets protruded the top of a big 
bottle of water and a large black tin case. 

“ Well, young ladies,” he remarked, “ I see you’re 
on time to : the minute. Where’s your mother, Cyn- 
thy ? I thought she was coming.” 

“ She said to tell you she was coming to look on 
next time. She’s got company,” answered Cynthy. 

The four had gone only a little way when a yell 
reached their ears. 

Back of them came Jenny and Bobby. Even at 
that distance they could distinguish the cross ex- 
pression of Bobby’s face. He was hurrying along 
so fast that he almost fell over himself. Then he 
would stop to catch his breath that he might give a 
yell of rage after Cynthy. 

“ He’s got an awful temper, Bobby has,” said she, 
calmly, “ we’d best wait.” 

“ Oh, dear,” murmured Kate, who thought she 
had enough of children all week long. 


Kate Decides to Become an Artist 147 

“ Let them come,” said Rose May, “ I’ll look after 
them.” 

Cynthy gave her a grateful look. She loved Kate 
best, but Rose May was gentler. 

Mr. Hitchcock piloted the little party to a lovely 
place in a grove of live-oaks. There was also some 
long grass following the course of a stream which 
had dried. 

He placed a camp-stool for each of the girls, and 
gave them paper, paint, water, and brushes. He 
squeezed a good deal of water from a sponge on 
each little cake of paint they were to use, and advised 
them to make their first sketch lightly with pencil. 

“ But what shall we paint ? ” they asked. 

“ Anything you see that you fancy,” he answered, 
“ only paint. But remember one thing. Paint big. 
See what you select as a whole. I’m going to let 
you alone to do just as you please for a couple of 
hours. Never mind that you never touched a brush 
before. Plunge right in. In that way I can find out 
what you need most. I’m going to start you in 
colour the first thing. Drawing is technical, and it 


148 


The Story of Kate 


will come with practice, but your fingers must learn 
to drip colour from the start.” 

Bobby, tired with his walk and temper, had 
already curled himself up in a sunny spot — for the 
native Californian loves sunshine — and gone to 
sleep. Little Jenny stole softly from one girl to the 
other to watch the progress of the work. At last she 
settled down by Rose May’s side with her finger in 
her mouth, a habit of babyhood which still clung to 
her. To sit by Cynthy possessed no charm of 
novelty, and she felt the austerity of her school- 
teacher in Kate, but Rose May filled her with de- 
lighted content. 

For awhile Mr. Hitchcock lay under the trees 
and smoked, then, becoming restless, went for a 
stroll, promising to be back soon. While he was 
gone, Mr. Higgins went by, stopped in surprise 
when he saw the pretty group, and asked what they 
were doing. He wasn’t much interested in the 
sketching for its own sake, but he was pleased to see 
Cynthy with the other two girls. As he was going 
home he picked up the sleeping Bobby and carried 
him away. Little Jenny rose and ran after him. 


Kate Decides to Become an Artist 149 


He bent down, and she stood on tiptoe to whisper 
her grievance in his ear. So he came back. 

“ Say, girls,” he said, “ Jenny she says she wants 
to make pictures, too, don’t you, Jenny? ” 

Jenny nodded, and the tears overflowed. 

“ Why, certainly,” said Rose May; “ come back 
here by me, Jenny, and you can paint a picture on 
the corner of my paper.” 

Thus peace was restored once more. Kate had 
scarcely observed the flurry. She had stopped work 
while Mr. Higgins was there, but had listened to him 
with a far-away look and two spots of colour burning 
bright in her face. She ceased sketching out of 
politeness, but she did not hear his words. Her 
thoughts were fixed on the distant hills. 

When Mr. Hitchcock came back he missed Bobby, 
and laughed to learn how the tired baby had been 
carried off. “ Keep right on with your work,” he 
directed, “ time isn’t up yet. I’ll sit right back 
here. But I promise not to embarrass you by 
looking over your shoulders.” 

Kate glanced up at him absent-mindedly, and 
went on with her painting. She had a desperate feel- 


J 5o 


The Story of Kate 


ing that her future depended on this afternoon. 
She, alone, knew the value of these lessons from 
the great artist, and now she worked feverishly. 
The afternoon wore on, and she had no thought of 
time, only she could see the light changing on the 
hills of which she had a glimpse over a knoll between 
the live-oaks. An expression of distress crossed 
her face once, as she looked up from her paper to 
the view and back again. 

“ Good,” thought the artist, “ she sees some 
mistake in her work.” 

Cynthy’s methods of work filled him with deli- 
cious amusement, but he kept silent. She was care- 
fully tracing a leaf which she had spread out on 
the paper. When the outline was complete she flung 
the leaf aside and filled the drawing in with colour. 
She had covered several sheets so far with these 
designs, and tossed them to one side. 

For some time Rose May had not lifted her eyes 
from her work, except when she filled her brush 
with fresh paint. “ What can she be painting? ” he 
wondered. She had torn off a piece of paper for 
little Jenny, and given the child a pencil. 


Kate Decides to Become an Artist 15 1 

At last he looked at the sketches, Kate’s first. 
She had chosen that distant vista of the hills. The 
picture she had made was out of drawing, the sky 
was too pale, as if she had felt timid about using- 
plenty of colour. 

“ Did the blue frighten you? ” asked Mr. Hitch- 
cock, his tone jesting, but his face earnest. There 
was a freedom and feeling in the sketch that pleased 
him. And, untaught as she was, she had somehow 
caught the spirit of the hills as she had in the draw- 
ing of the eucalyptus-trees Cynthy had showed him. 
There was a touch of glamour on her hills, an 
opalescent gleam. 

“ She feels the poetry of it,” he thought, but to 
her he said, kindly, but almost sternly, “ Work, 
work, and don’t be afraid. Then we shall see.” 

Kate never quite returned to her old ease of 
manner with him that afternoon. The artist- 
master had absorbed the genial stranger. She could 
never, after she had learned who he was, approach 
him with the same freedom, for reverence for his 
work was strong in her. While he turned his atten- 
tion now to the other girls, she sat silent, her 


152 


The Story of Kate 


thoughts in a maze, her heart beating in a rapture 
almost painful. The future no longer stretched 
clear and sure and narrow before her, as when her 
ambition was to teach school. It opened confusedly 
but limitless in her imagination, and swept her out 
into a world far removed from all her home-training 
and early traditions. She did not hear Mr. Hitch- 
cock’s laughter when he looked at Rose May’s work. 
Rose May had started out to paint a tree, but left it 
leafless, though with several branches. All around 
the margin of the paper she had painted cunning 
little hats and bonnets in the gayest colours of the 
box. 

Kate had never been happier than in the days that 
followed her first lesson. Every day after school 
hours while the light held she sketched. Saturdays 
she rose early, and worked the greater part of the 
day. Mr. Hitchcock presented her with her painting 
outfit. At first she was embarrassed to accept so 
much from one on whom she had no claim. 

“ But you have a claim,” he answered. “ Don’t 
you suppose I was ever helped by any one when I 
was a boy ? Why, all my expenses were paid abroad 


Kate Decides to Become an Artist 1 53 

by a dear old lady who was not the least relative. 
So, I try to return what she did for me to some one 
else, and the time will come when you can pass on 
the little I consider it my privilege to do for you.” 

“ But if I don’t succeed?” she answered, 
anxiously. 

“ Don’t think about success yet awhile,” he ad- 
vised her. “ Remember what I said at first. Work 
and don’t be afraid.” 

The very fact that he should think it worth while 
to advise her to work gave her renewed courage, 
and she began to see that he took an affectionate 
pride in her as his pupil. She conducted the school 
as conscientiously as ever, but she no longer spent 
time in preparing herself for her courses at the 
university. To her surprise, she found that the 
teaching no longer dragged nor the discipline 
irksome. Perhaps it was the secret well of happiness 
in her own heart when she thought of her future 
as an artist, and the teaching meant the means to 
the end. But it was more likely that this new con- 
tent lay in her different attitude toward her pupils. 
Mr. Hitchcock’s words had made a deep impression 


154 


The Story of Kate 


upon her. Why should she wait until she had at- 
tained success before trying to repay her debt to 
him? Kate’s fund of common sense and humour 
here came to her aid. “ I’m not going to dream of 
the future,” she said ; “ I’m just going to be friends 
with Mary Johnson and some of the rest.” 

There were seven pupils who came from some 
distance on their ponies every morning, and brought 
their lunch. They were Mary Johnson and the 
three Wilsons, Dick Carr, and the two McCarty 
girls. With the exception of the two younger 
Wilsons the other five were nearly of an age and 
naturally congenial, were they brought closely to- 
gether. Kate carried her lunch every day, as Rose 
May took her dinner at the Louvre, and this arrange- 
ment proved more convenient to them both. She 
had been in the habit of eating her luncheon alone 
in the schoolroom. But one day she asked Mary 
Johnson to wait a minute after school. 

“ Mary,” she said, “ don’t you think it would be 
nice if we could put a table out in that grove of 
live-oaks right back of the schoolhouse, and all 
of us have our lunch there together every noon ? ” 


Kate Decides to Become an Artist 155 

Mary Johnson flushed all over her good, freckled 
face. She had thought Kate put on airs of supe- 
riority and had been sensitive. She was a year older 
than Kate, but had never had any advantages until 
lately. 

“ I don't care,” she said, her pride making her 
resentful of any condescension. 

Kate knew country people, and understood how to 
take them, and that Mary Johnson’s non-committal 
reply meant consent. Phil Wilson and Dick Carr 
fell in readily with the idea, and spent their noons 
for the next week in building a table with a bench 
on either side. The institution became a genuine 
pleasure to them all. The two younger Wilsons 
were inclined to be uproarious at times, but a threat 
of a licking from their older brother quelled their 
exuberant spirits. The girls always had a bouquet 
of flowers in the centre of the table and spread out 
the lunches attractively. Had Kate been the least bit 
less authoritative by nature her discipline would have 
suffered with the other pupils, but she always 
planned to be through with the lunch before they 
returned from their dinners at home. One day, to 


156 The Story of Kate 

their surprise, the minister joined them. He sat 
and visited while they ate, and took a cup of tea 
with them, for the girls made up a fire in the school- 
house stove every day just long enough to bring 
the water in the kettle to a boil. He was much 
interested in ancient history, and always had some- 
thing to impart, and the young people were eager to 
learn. They were not driven to school, but overcame 
obstacles to attend. Their parents needed them to 
help in the ranch work, and spared them at a 
sacrifice. So they brought to their work an eager- 
ness to acquire knowledge which in itself should have 
been an inspiration. But Kate was too much one 
of them as yet in experience fully to appreciate this 
fact. She only knew that the midday meals together 
in the little clump of live-oaks had made them all 
better friends. She learned to know Mary Johnson, 
and even promised to go out to the Johnson ranch 
sometime and stay over night and spend the day. 
Phil Wilson told her of his ambition to be a lawyer 
and go into politics. He and Aaron Higgins were 
the two brightest pupils in the school. But Kate 
never learned to like Aaron, and was not a little 


Kate Decides to Become an Artist 1 57 

displeased when she heard that he had asked Mr. 
Hitchcock if he could take Cynthy’s place in the 
sketch club. Both Cynthy and Rose May had 
dropped out from the club, although they always 
accompanied the members on their excursions. 
Aaron, having established himself as a pupil of Mr. 
Hitchcock’s, never failed to attend a lesson. Kate 
recognised in him not only an ambition equal to her 
own, but also the dogged determination not to let 
any one get ahead of him. He could not bear to 
be outdone. He drew with intelligence, although 
with little native talent, and Kate felt that for the 
first time Aaron treated her with respect and 
acknowledged her ability. This caused her to adopt 
toward him a more superior tone than she used to 
any one else. 

“ Say, Miss Whitney,” he said, one day, “ say, I’ll 
let up on you if you’ll help me out a little more on 
my spelling.” That was his sensitive point, and 
Kate appreciated that it mortified him to be obliged 
to admit it to her. But since he had learned that 
Phil Wilson was to be a lawyer, he determined to 


i5 8 The Story of Kate 

enter the law also, and saw the necessity of learning 
how to spell. 

Thus it was that private spelling lessons to 
Aaron became another feature of Kate’s existence in 
Green Hollow. 

The spirit of the little school became more friendly 
and pleasant, and one merry incident brought them 
together in better comradeship than ever. A Hal- 
lowe’en picnic was given, and they were to have 
supper in the woods. Then it was that Phil Wilson 
proposed the girls shouldn’t do anything but let the 
boys make the coffee and get out the picnic lunch. 

Rose May had been invited, and she came, with 
a basket of sugar tarts of her own making. The 
boys made a fire, and put on the big coffee-pot. It 
was not long before it began to boil. 

“Don’t you think it ought to be done?” asked 
Kate, anxiously, after awhile. “ I’m sure it’s been 
boiling over ten minutes.” 

“ I can actually hear the water bumping around 
in the pot,” said Mary Johnson, so solemnly that 
both Rose May and Kate laughed. 

Another ten minutes went by, and the steam con- 


Kate Decides to Become an Artist 159 

tinued to rush out of the spout. Kate's imperious 
nature could keep quiet no longer: 

“ Phil, Phil Wilson,” she called, “ the coffee ought 
to be stirred down and set aside to settle.” 

“ All right,” he said, a little doubtfully, “ if you 
think it’s done. Here, fellows, lend me that bread- 
knife. Fve got to stir it down. If it ain’t good the 
girls won’t think much of us as cooks.” 

He drew off the big tin coffee-pot, and taking off 
the cover, thrust down the knife. At the first stir 
he stopped, and amazement spread over his face. 
“ There’s something in here,” he said, “ wait till the 
steam gets off.” 

There was, indeed, something in the coffee-pot! 
There were cups and saucers and oranges and nap- 
kins boiling along with the coffee. The boys had put 
the water and coffee in, without looking to see if 
anything had been packed in the big, battered tin. 

And although their supper lacked coffee, it was 
merrier under the circumstances than if they had 
had it. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Dickens in Green Hollow 

The most delightful feature of the whole year, 
however, was the bargain Mr. Hitchcock made that 
he should be read aloud to. On Monday, Friday, 
and Saturday, her free evenings, Kate read aloud a 
novel of the artist’s own choosing. He was an Eng- 
lishman, and loved his Dickens. So he sent to San 
Francisco for an edition of his favourite author, and 
the first book they read was “ Pickwick Papers.” 
He was the only one who had ever read it. It 
was a happy group that gathered in the little par- 
lour. There was first the artist, sitting in the darkest 
corner to avoid the direct rays of the lamp. He had 
asked Rose May if she minded his cigar, and 
although she thought sadly of her lace curtains 
tobacco-scented, the spirit of hospitality was too 
strong in her for her to do aught but smile her 

160 


Dickens in Green Hollow 161 

consent. The first time Kate nearly betrayed them 
both by giggling at the secret distress of her friend. 

Then Mrs. Higgins always came down with 
Cynthy. Not one of them enjoyed the reading, 
perhaps, quite as much as she. She laughed and 
wept as the pages were turned, and went home at 
the end of the evening in a dew of emotion, and 
when they came to that part of the book in which 
the debtors’ prison was described, she could not be 
comforted until Mr. Hitchcock had assured her 
again and again that the evil no more existed. 

“ It just seems as if heaven couldn’t make it all 
up to them poor souls for having such a hard time 
on earth, don’t it? ” she said. 

Cynthy had remained quiet during this interrup- 
tion, but some instinct caused Kate to turn and look 
at her. 

“ Cynthy’s frightened,” she cried. “ Whv, Cyn- 
thy ! ” for Cynthy had turned and hidden her face in 
the pillow on the sofa. 

They were all very much touched when she told 
them what had frightened her. “ I ain’t never 


162 


The Story of Kate 


thought of a prison before,” she said. ‘ There ain’t 
any prisons here in the mountains.” 

So Mr. Hitchcock, realising what an exceedingly 
tender-hearted company he had gathered, took the 
book from Kate and turned over the pages until he 
came to a merrier part. 

They did not happen to make a note of the fact 
that the cornet across the street was quiet these 
nights, until, this particular evening, they heard an 
irresistible titter join in with their own laughter. 

Rose May ran to the door, which they generally 
left a little open for air. There on the step sat Mr. 
Love. 

“ If that ain’t like you, Love,” cried Mrs. Higgins, 
‘‘ you always was cur’ous as a cow. But come in. 
I guess the girls won’t mind, will you, girls?” 

“ Come in,” called Mr. Hitchcock, heartily. 
“ Dickens is for all of us.” 

So Mr. Love came in, looking a trifle sheepish, 
and sat down near the door in the chair Kate brought 
in from the kitchen. “ I kind a-calculated something 
or other was going on the first night, so I tiptoed 
across the street, and as the door was a crack 


Dickens in Green Hollow 163 

open I could hear just as plain.” Mr. Love here 
smiled with obvious self-congratulation. “ Yes, sir, 
I could hear just as plain as you folks can hear me 
this minute. After that I kind a-took the habit 
of cutting across to the step and listening. And I 
must say you’re a fine reader, Miss Kate, though 
they do say as flattery to the face’s open disgrace. 
Ain’t that so, Mrs. Higgins ? ” He stroked his 
wispy yellow moustache, and gave an embarrassed 
cough. 

“ Stop that there coughing, Love,” said Mrs. 
Higgins ; “ it ain’t nothin’ but habit with you. He 
just coughed his wife into her grave with worrying 
over him,” she added, addressing the rest, “ and he 
ain’t never gone off into consumption yet.” 

Mr. Love’s embarrassment at these remarks made 
him to start to cough again, but he checked himself 
in time, although this caused him to choke so that 
the tears streamed down his face, and Rose May 
hastened to run and get him a glass of water. 

After that he was an unfailing visitor “ reading- 
evenings.” 

A few nights before the Thanksgiving vacation, 


1 64 The Story of Kate 

when Kate was to go home, Rose May planned a 
surprise-party in her honour. 

She was obliged to take Mr. Love into the secret, 
as he openly wondered why she bought so many 
lemons. She finished her work at the Louvre early 
that afternoon, and hurried home to make little 
frosted cakes and sandwiches. Kate suspected 
something when she returned home from school 
later, for she was not allowed to go into the kitchen, 
and Rose May, after the fashion of cooks who have 
spoiled their own appetites eating the left-over frost- 
ing, put such a poor picked-up supper on the table 
that Kate was nearly starved. 

The party took place after the reading from 
Dickens. 

Mr. Love came in a little late, carrying a big bottle 
of olives. He wore his store clothes and a posy 
in his buttonhole. He said that the olives were to 
go with the sandwiches, and so gave the surprise 
away, much to Rose May’s vexation. 

Mrs. Higgins pronounced the sandwiches and 
cakes as good as her own making, and wished she 


Dickens in Green Hollow 165 

had been told of the party, so she could have brought 
something. 

She helped herself liberally to the olives. “ Do 
you mind you, Love,” she said, “ how when you used 
to take me to prayer-meeting, you alius filled your 
pocket with olives for me to eat going home? 
Olives come high in them days, and they went a 
long way toward making me like you. But you was 
too cur’ous, and so I took Higgins and settled down. 
Ain’t that your Pa’s step, Cynthy? ” 

“ Yes,” said Rose May, “ I invited him to the 
party, and he guessed he’d come.” 

Cynthy ran to the door and dragged him in. He 
entered, feeling a trifle foolish over his appearance 
in society, but he hadn’t known how to refuse the 
invitation so genuinely given. He dropped a paper- 
bag on the table, as he took his seat on the lounge 
beside his daughter. “ Thought you’d like some 
gum-drops,” he remarked. The bag really con- 
tained chocolate creams, but to Mr. Higgins all candy 
came under the general head of gum-drops. To 
his surprise, he found he enjoyed the evening, and 


1 66 The Story of Kate 

for the first time in many years he and Mrs. Hig- 
gins walked home from a party together. 

The next day Kate was surprised to see Mr. 
Higgins enter the schoolroom door. Aaron, who 
heard the steps of some visitor, was too absorbed 
with a pencil and paper to look up until the heavy 
steps stopped back of him, and with a start he 
recognised his father. He put his hand over the 
paper too late to conceal what he had been making. 
It was a sketch of his teacher, with a nose turned 
up in exaggerated fashion, as she looked scornfully 
at a pair of giant scissors. The story of Kate’s 
discipline had reached the amused ears of the school- 
board, of which Mr. Higgins was a member. It 
did not take any weight from Aaron’s mind that his 
father passed on without a word. 

He took the chair Kate drew forth for him, and 
sat on the platform, listening with interest to the 
class that was then reciting. Kate thought his visit 
was one of inspection, and was thankful that the 
class did well. Once a month a member of the 
school-board would drop in at the most unexpected 
time to pay a visit. Bobby, who came to school, 


Dickens in Green Hollow 167 

although he was not of age, and sat next to Jenny 
with a primer held upside down, or else scratched 
busily on his little slate, smiled at his father steadily. 
He had been too well disciplined by Kate to dare 
speaking or going up to his father, so he continued 
to smile, knowing that would not be questioned. 
Cynthy, after her first grave regard, turned her full 
attention to the geography recitation. 

When school was dismissed, Mr. Higgins re- 
mained seated, to Kate’s surprise. 

“ Go right along, Cynthy,” he said, as the girl 
lingered, “ and as for you, Aaron, you may bring 
that picture you was making, out to me in the grape- 
arbour when I get home.” 

“ I’d like to lick Pa myself,” said Aaron, furiously, 
as he and Billy went off with the rest of the boys. 
They all knew Aaron was going to get a whipping. 

“ Let’s see what you got? ” they asked, crowding 
around him. 

“ No, I won’t,” he said, angrily, thrusting the 
paper in a crumpled ball into his pocket. “ Go ’way 
unless you want to fight.” 

“ I wish there was just Ma,” said Billy, as he 


1 68 The Story of Kate 

and his brother went off alone. “ Pa, he don’t care 
nothin’ for any of us except just Cynthy. And she’s 
awful dumb.” 

Aaron kicked up the dust in a rage as he hurried 
on. Mingling with his anger with his father was his 
own sense of guilt. He knew he hadn’t played fair 
with Kate. He had promised to “ let up on her,” as 
he expressed it, if she taught him to spell better, 
and he had broken his promise. He drew the sketch 
in order to show it to the boys afterwards and have 
some fun. 

Still he did show it to Billy, and in a way was 
consoled by his brother’s appreciative giggle, and 
he couldn’t help admiring his own handiwork. 
“ Look at the nose I got on her,” he said ; “ say, 
Billy, now ain’t it great! But Pa he never could 
see the fun in anything. It’s a fact I’m beginning 
to twitch already, sure I am, Billy.” 

When they were alone and Mary Johnson had 
gone, Mr. Higgins spoke to Kate on the matter 
which had brought him there that afternoon. 

“ I suppose you know,” he began, “ that my girl, 
Cynthy, sets a store by you, and I want to tell you 


Dickens in Green Hollow 169 

right now what maybe you didn’t know. I worked 
for you in the school-board against a young fellow 
who wanted the position, and I’m glad of it.” He 
brought his hand down forcibly on his knee. “ I’m 
glad of it,” he repeated. This was much for Mr. 
Higgins to say. He was a man of few words. 
Kate flushed with pleasure. 

“ I want Cynthy to have advantages,” he con- 
tinued, “ and if there’s anything you have in mind 
that’d be nice for her, I just want you to out and 
say it. ’Tain’t a question of money with me where 
Cynthy’s concerned. My boys have got to earn 
their salt same’s I done. It’ll make men of them, 
but I calculate on my girls having advantages.” 

A sudden, daring thought flashed into Kate’s 
mind. Her bright eyes shone brighter, her lips 
parted to speak, then closed. Her courage failed her. 

“ Talk right out,” advised her visitor. “ I’m not 
one to take offence.” 

Kate locked her hands tightly together in her lap 
under the table. She felt that for Cynthy’s sake 
she must speak. Yet how could she say what was 
in her mind? 


170 


The Story of Kate 


“ Mr. Higgins,” she said, with desperate courage, 
“ I wish Cynthy had a room of her own, like other 
girls. It would make her feel like, like, like,” 
hesitated poor Kate, “ like a young lady.” Her 
heart was beating fast. There was a moment’s 
silence in which she was convinced she had insulted 
him and spoiled things for Cynthy. 

“ Well,” said Mr. Higgins at last, very slowly, “ I 
reckon it does take a stranger to come in and see 
what’s needed in a house. All right, Miss Kate. 
Much obliged.” 

He shook hands with her and nodded. Kate knew 
there would be no doubt about Cynthy getting her 
room. 

“ But, oh, how terrible for me to say it,” she said 
to herself, as with her cheeks still burning she put 
her desk in order ; “ it sounded so horrid of me, as if 
I were criticising Mrs. Higgins’s way of living. I 
don’t believe I can ever look Mr. Higgins in the 
face again. How interested Mother will be to 
hear all about it ! ” And then she had to laugh again 
as she recalled the night she had spent with the 
Higginses. 


Dickens in Green Hollow 171 

She could scarcely realise as she locked the school- 
house door that she was actually going home the 
next day. At almost the last moment she had found 
that she could go a day earlier than she had sup- 
posed, and so she planned to take her parents by 
surprise. 

Mr. Love said that Jimmy could drive her home. 
The little grocer made the offer sincerely, and was 
anxious that Kate should accept it. He told her he 
had enjoyed neighbouring with her and Rose May, 
and would be obliged if she would let him show his 
thanks for the reading-evenings that way. Kate 
was fond of Jimmy. He came to school, and was 
a nice, freckle-faced, red-haired boy, so unlike his 
father that she was confident he must be his mother’s 
boy. 

The day was beautiful, although the dust was 
great and had sifted into their lunch. But being 
Californians, so slight a thing as dust, and the fact 
that the sunshine was glaring, did not trouble them. 
Kate forgot her school-teacher dignity, and laughed 
and chatted with Jimmy, and listened to his stories 
of adventure, for he prided himself upon his skill 


172 The Story of Kate 

as a hunter, and had killed a deer with “ the velvet 
on the horns,” which was rare indeed. When she 
came back to Green Hollow, he promised to show 
her the horns. 

They arrived at the ranch in the middle of the 
afternoon. There Jimmy remained long enough to 
meet Mrs. Whitney (he knew the Colonel of old) 
and to rest his horse before starting back. 

That night in her room Kate lay awake a long 
time, feeling strangely unhappy. Everything at 
home seemed different, but she realised that it was 
she who had changed, and not her father and mother. 

After the good supper Chung had served with 
such loving skill, she and the Colonel and Mrs. 
Whitney sat and talked until after eleven o’clock. 

They had little news to tell her, except the way 
things were going on the ranch, and, most surprising 
of all, Pietro had married a pretty Mexican girl, and 
had built a rude little cottage for himself and his 
bride on the further side of the ranch. 

“ I’ll take you over to-morrow,” said her father. 

Then she told them of her first experiences as a 
teacher, and about that memorable night at the 


Dickens in Green Hollow 173 

Higginses, and showed them proudly her bank- 
book. Much of this she had written home in her 
weekly letters, but, as Colonel Whitney truthfully 
remarked, the best of letters are never entirely sat- 
isfying. “ I feel as if I knew them all now, Rose 
May and all,” said Mrs. Whitney, “ and how strange 
you should have found that Mr. Hitchcock there. I 
wasn’t a bit surprised when you wrote us he was an 
artist. I mistrusted something flighty about him.” 

It was these words of her mother’s which had 
given Kate her first chill. She had been keeping 
the great secret of her lessons as a surprise, and had 
brought home her portfolio to show her best sketches. 
In a moment she determined not to say a word. 
Lovely as it was to be home, Kate’s heart ached and 
ached beneath her cheerful laughter and her merry 
jokes. She seemed to see fully for the first time the 
worn, anxious look on her mother’s brave face, and 
she recognised a resemblance in her father’s face 
to the class of men who frequented the Louvre. It 
was the baffled, hopeless, far-off glance of men who 
pursued the chimera of fortune, always trusting that 
luck would turn. It was almost more than her self- 


l 7 4 


The Story of Kate 


control would permit, not to burst out crying when 
she kissed her mother good night. But Mrs. 
Whitney divined no tears beneath the smile, and 
kissed her child with a heart full of content. 

“ I’m just as glad now, dearie, that you didn’t go 
back to the university this year. Green Hollow has 
done you good. I never saw my little girl looking 
so well and strong before.” 

It always seemed to Kate that in some mysterious 
way she became a woman that night. She appre- 
ciated her parents’ dependence on her. She thought 
of their long struggle, and she wept bitter tears into 
her pillow. She had given up her promised year at 
the university. Was she now called upon to 
renounce her bright dreams of an artistic life also? 
Was it not her duty to devote herself entirely to the 
course of preparation she had mapped out for herself 
as a teacher? 

Something leapt softly and heavily upon the bed. 
It was John. She sat up and put her arms around 
him and hugged him. 

“ You dear, good old John,” she whispered, “ did 
you know I was feeling blue ? ” 


Dickens in Green Hollow 175 

She was greatly comforted by this dumb friend, 
who required no explanation of her mood, but was 
content merely to show his affection. And then 
with a very honest prayer on her lips that she might 
do only what was right, and her arms hugging the 
old cat, Kate fell asleep. 


CHAPTER X. 


Kate’s Ship Comes In 

But Kate told her mother, after all. She could 
not conceal anything from that loving heart. It 
was a hard blow to Mrs. Whitney, harder even 
than her daughter realised. She feared her child 
was developing the Colonel’s visionary nature. Yet 
she did not know what to say. Kate had always 
been delicate, and now for the first time she looked 
really robust. Mrs. Whitney puzzled over this. 
She had always taken the best care of her, and she 
was forced to the conclusion that Kate’s delight in 
her sketching had much to do with her condition 
of health. This prompted her to indulgence against 
her better judgment. 

“ If I could only see my way clear about money, 
I would not care how much she painted,” she would 

say to herself alone, “ but Kate has got to teach.” 

176 


Kate's Ship Comes In 


1 77 


It was Colonel Whitney who was genuinely de- 
lighted with the sketches. His mother had talent 
for painting, he said, but she had had too large 
a family of children ever to make much of it. “ But 
she was always wishing to,” he said, his far-away 
blue eyes dwelling lovingly on Kate, “ alwiays wish- 
ing to.” 

There was one person Kate’s visit home made 
entirely happy, and that was Chung. 

She made a little pencil-sketch of John, and by 
happy fortune caught the old cat’s expression. 
Chung was delighted as a child, and ever after 
counted the drawing among his treasures. 

Monday she returned to Green Hollow. The 
Colonel drove her back Sunday. Mrs. Whitney 
had promised to come and make a visit in the little 
cottage as soon as she was through preserving-time. 
The two clung wistfully to each other at parting, 
and Kate could not bring herself to take that happi- 
ness in her father’s sympathy with her artistic ambi- 
tion that she might have under other circumstances. 
It seemed almost disloyal to her mother. Colonel 
Whitney felt this, too, and was concerned for his 


178 


The Story of Kate 


wife’s disappointment. So he said no word of her 
painting during the entire ride. 

It was well that there was much to occupy Kate 
when she reached Green Hollow. First of all there 
was Cynthy’s room. Every one in the village took 
an interest in that room, and sent something for it. 
Mr. Love sent a rocking-chair that had been a 
favourite with the late Mrs. Love. The minister 
sent a book of ancient history, to which Cynthy was 
supremely indifferent, and offered to Kate. Rose 
May made ruffled curtains and the bureau cover. 
She did the work and Mr. Higgins paid for the 
material. Cynthy made but one stipulation in 
regard to her room. She wanted plenty of windows. 
So there were four. The room was oblong and 
built the length of the house. Two windows were 
built into the side, and one at each end. Rose May 
confessed to Kate that making so many curtains 
almost made her feel as if she never even wanted 
to see a curtain again. Kate had been puzzled to 
know just what to give Cynthy. She remembered 
what Mr. Hitchcock had said about the old mirror 


Kate's Ship Comes In 179 

she found, and she consulted him about having it 
fixed up. 

“You’d better let me attend to it,” he advised; 
“ I know an old fellow in San Francisco who will 
do it cheap for me.” 

“Do you think two dollars would pay for it?” 
asked Kate, anxiously, knowing it was all she could 
possibly afford. 

“ I think I can manage it,” said Mr. Hitchcock ; 
“ we’ll get Love to box it for us and send it on 
to-morrow.” He took the two dollars she gave him, 
and she went away contented, pausing, however, for 
one more anxious question. “ You think it’s worth 
while spending that much on it ? ” 

“ Indeed, I do,” he said ; “ you trust me, Miss 
Kate. I know.” 

“ I did think the glass itself was rather dull,” she 
ventured. 

“ Oh, the glass isn’t worth anything,” he said, 
“ it’s the frame.” Which answer puzzled her not 
a little. 

From thus enlarging his room to the extent of 
one room, Mr. Higgins became ambitious, and built 


i8o 


The Story of Kate 


on a parlour to the front, and an extra bedroom on 
the other side for the boys. 

Mrs. Higgins was much amused by these proceed- 
ings, and it puzzled Kate to observe that she seemed 
quite as unconcerned as if it were not her home. 
She would sit in her pink calico, rocking back and 
forth hours at a time, as she visited with the 
carpenter. 

“ I never interfere with Higgins/’ she told Kate; 
“ ’tain’t none of my business. He knows if he’s 
got the money for this here extravagance.” To 
every one’s surprise she had taken to reading. Mr. 
Hitchcock had presented her with his set of Dickens, 
and she passed many happy afternoons while the 
children were at school reading aloud to herself. 
“ I can’t seem to take it all in unless I hear the words 
spoke out loud,” she informed Kate. 

Cynthy’s room was at last completed. When the 
mirror came from the city, it was accompanied by 
another package. This proved to be one of the 
artist’s own canvases. The subject was moonrise 
in the early evening, by a marshy pond, with great 


Kate's Ship Comes In 181 

trees all about, and in the foreground a deer 
drinking. 

“ I can hear the frogs almost when I look at it,” 
Cynthy told him, a world of wonder in her beautiful 
dark eyes. “ I think to myself, there’s lots of them 
in that there pond.” 

As for the mirror, it came back a thing of beauty, 
the frame shining and golden as that of the picture. 
These two things made Cynthy’s room exceptional. 
Then what fun the girls had buying all the little 
things, the bedspread for the little yellow pine bed- 
stead, the set of china for the wash-stand (for Kate 
did not approve of Cynthy washing in the grape- 
arbour or taking her bath in the tub in the kitchen), 
and a lamp for her very own self. It had been 
Cynthy’s habit to undress in the dark. She and 
Rose May nearly fell out on the point of the colour 
of the pad for the bureau and the ribbons to tie back 
the curtains. She wanted scarlet and Rose May 
thought pink would be prettier. Finally they com- 
promised on yellow, which was Kate’s suggestion. 
The first time she visited Cynthy in the new room, 
she saw a small trundle-bed in the corner. 


182 


The Story of Kate 


“ I thought I’d be lonesome without Jenny and 
Bobby,” explained Cynthy, and Kate sighed. 

When Mrs. Whitney came, Kate made her stay a 
week, and perceived with delight that the change 
brought the faint pink into her mother’s soft, fine 
complexion, and that a rested look came into her 
eyes. While she was there, Kate put away her 
painting materials, and asked Mr. Hitchcock not 
to say anything about the lessons. She had to ex- 
plain the matter quite fully before he understood. 
Christmas came, and Kate was glad of the long 
vacation at home, and spent her time chiefly help- 
ing her mother with the sewing. 

“ I missed you as much as if you had been gone 
most a year,” said Rose May, when her friend re- 
turned. “ And Mr. Hitchcock has a surprise for 
you.” 

The surprise proved to be that there had been 
several prizes offered by the San Francisco Art 
League, and Mr. Hitchcock wished her to try for 
one. Such encouragement from him made her quite 
faint with happiness. 

And in the spring there came the blessed rains 


Kate's Ship Comes In 183 

again, as plentiful as they were a year ago, and the 
poppies were waving gold on the hills, and another 
year of prosperity dawned for the country. No one 
remained home from school for the rains. Never 
yet was a good California child heard to repeat the 
old Mother Goose rhyme of — 

“ Rain, rain, go away, 

Come again some other day, 

Little Johnny wants to play.” 

Even the babies knew there wouldn’t be much play 
for them if the rains went away. 

And Mr. Hitchcock told Kate how to see the pop- 
pies if she would learn how to paint them; not to 
see them as single blossoms, but in masses, in waves 
of rippling gold on the hillside. 

One spring night Kate and Rose May sat on their 
front door-step together. It was that rarest of rare 
things in California, a warm evening, when the air 
was so mild that they could sit out-of-doors. The 
air was a little misty, so that the stars were dim. 
A dreamy evening which tended to silence, so that 
the two had little to say to each other. Kate worked 
harder than ever these days. She grew thin, and 


184 


The Story of Kate 


a restless light was in her gray eyes, and once or 
twice she scolded Rose May for no reason whatever. 
Rose May did not resent it. She was sure teach- 
ing must be wearisome, and she did not think Kate 
seemed well. But it was not the teaching that 
fretted Kate. She was painting beyond her allow- 
ance of strength, in the hope of winning one of 
the prizes offered by the Art League in San Fran- 
cisco. If she won nothing, she felt that she would 
have no right to continue the art, but must fit her- 
self for a school-teacher in some special higher 
branch. Her life was not her own. She must con- 
sider her parents. She twisted her hands nervously 
together in her lap, and gave a long sigh. 

“ What is it?” inquired Rose May. 

“ Nothing,” retorted Kate, crossly. “ I hope I can 
breathe, can’t I ? ” 

Rose May clapped her hands over her mouth just 
in time to stop a giggle. She perceived her friend 
was in no mood to see the humourous side of any- 
thing. 

Mr. Love, in the upper window of his home across 
the way, was practising on his cornet. He was play- 


Kate's Ship Conies In 


185 


ing “ Annie Laurie/’ and, although he rendered it 
with many false notes, Kate’s ear was not critical, 
and the sweet, melancholy notes pleased her 
mood. She had been thinking of some subject for 
the sketch she was to submit to the League, but 
none that had presented itself so far satisfied her. 
Howl sad and far-away the cornet sounded! She 
was reminded vaguely of that sad, far-off range of 
mountains which stretched west of her home. Sad- 
ness they had, but also what grandeur! She knew 
that if she ever left them for long, she would be 
homesick, as her mother was for the green hills of 
Vermont. 

Rose May was tapping softly with her foot, and 
humming the tune the cornet was playing. She was 
almost frightened when Kate suddenly turned and 
hugged her. 

“ Oh, Rose May, I’ve got it,” she cried. “ I see 
them just as plain.” And then she was off dancing 
about the yard and back to embrace her friend again. 
“ I was just as hateful as I could be to you. Yes, 
I was. Let’s go over to the post-office and have 
some cream-pop.” 


1 86 The Story of Kate 

There was no soda-water fountain in Green Hol- 
low, but Mr. Mather, who was both postmaster and 
druggist, did a good business in ginger ale and 
cream-pop. So the two girls went in and got some 
money, and then crossed over, feeling to the full 
how delightful it was to be about in the evening 
without hats or jackets. Several of their friends 
were in, and the druggist was bustling about to 
serve them. 

“ I’d be a millionaire if this warm weather lasted,” 
he said, pushing the girls’ orders toward them. His 
glasses had given out, and Kate received her straw- 
berry cream-pop in a thick, white coffee-cup. 

The next morning she was up early, painting 
long before Rose May opened her eyes. The sketch 
was made many times before she finally submitted 
it to Mr. Hitchcock for his approval. 

“ It is the way I remember the mountains that 
afternoon before the rains, when you came in the 
evening,” she told him. 

He regarded it long in silence. Above all, the 
simplicity pleased him. There they were, the red 
and purple mountains, and the white sand was in 


Kate's Ship Comes In 187 

the foreground. And yet she had put into the slight 
work a suggestion of the desolate grandeur of the 
scene. He said to himself that the child was a 
genius. 

Kate stood waiting for his verdict. At last he 
spoke. 

“ I think we’d better send this and see what it 
will do for us.” 

To his distress and amazement, Kate burst into 
tears. 

“ I’m just a goose to cry,” she sobbed, filled with 
mortification at her weakness, “ because I’m just as 
happy as I can be. I really am, Mr. Hitchcock.” 

So the sketch was sent away about the first of 
May, in ample time for the competition. And at 
the artist’s advice she sent a little sketch she had 
made of Cynthy, all in brown sepia, except for Rose 
May’s poppy-wreath on her head. This last gave 
a touch of crimson. Then Kate resolutely put 
away her brushes and paint until after commence- 
ment, which was the last of the month. She had 
hoped her mother could come over for that day, but 
Mrs. Whitney was too busy on the ranch to leave. 


1 88 


The Story of Kate 


The graduation exercises made an event in Green 
Hollow. Kate worked hard to make the occurrence 
a success. She not only wished to secure her re- 
appointment, but she confided to Rose May that she 
longed to prove to the school-board that the experi- 
ment of having a girl for a teacher had proved satis- 
factory. She decided that if she received the least 
commendation, if not the prize, from the Art League, 
she would go on teaching another year and work at 
her painting during her spare time. True, she would 
not have Mr. Hitchcock there to give her lessons, 
but she had now the start, and her instruction was 
laid in in broad lines, along which she could work 
by herself. Of late she had written nothing to 
her mother of her wish to give up the old plan of 
attending the university. The consciousness- of her 
mother’s disappointment almost decided Kate at 
times to give up all dreams of being an artist. It 
was well that she was so busy after her sketch was 
sent that she had no time for thinking of the matter. 

Mary Johnson proved the greatest help to her 
in planning out the important afternoon. The two 
girls saw the minister and obtained his consent to 


Kate's Ship Comes In 189 

hold the exercises in the hall in which church was 
held. There was a melodion they could use, and the 
organist, who was the minister’s wife, volunteered 
her services at the suggestion of her husband. 

The thirtieth of May dawned clear and beautiful. 
All morning the girls and Jimmy Love spent deco- 
rating the bare room. They piled pine branches in 
the window-ledges, and massed in quantities of 
scarlet and white geraniums, a brilliant effect against 
each window’s background of blue sky. About the 
platform and the melodion they put only roses and 
ferns. When it was all done, they hurried home to 
dress. Mary Johnson had brought her gown with 
her, in a basket on top of her pony that morning, 
and was to dress at the cottage. Rose May was in 
her element. Mary Johnson was the valedictorian, 
and it was important she should look well. Rose 
May’s skilful fingers arranged her hair, and fash- 
ioned the white satin ribbon into butterfly bows, 
one for Mary’s hair, one where her belt fastened, 
and two for the elbows. 

“ I’m so fond of bows,” commented Rose May, as 
she stood off to admire her handiwork. She had 


190 


The Story of Kate 


on white, too, but with pink ribbons, and with one 
bow pinned on her petticoat to show coquettishly 
through the overdress of muslin. Kate wore for 
the first time the blue dimity with the black velvet 
ribbon her mother had made her a year ago to take 
to college. 

It was a solemn and nervous afternoon for 
teacher, pupils, and visitors. The school-board, at- 
tired in their black Sunday clothes, sat in a circle 
on the platform. Mrs. Higgins surprised every one 
by appearing in a new calico gown of strong lavender 
colour with white sprigs. Somehow that dress hyp- 
notised Kate, and she would find herself wondering, 
while the exercises proceeded, how it was that Mrs. 
Higgins’s face looked so full-blown and pink. Then 
she came to the conclusion that her pink dress made 
her look all the same colour, so that one did not 
notice her complexion so much. Mary Johnson, 
who was a born teacher, had taught the littlest pupils 
a song about birds, in which they waved their arms 
like birds at the end of every verse. Mr. Higgins, 
who sat with the school-board, caught up his little 
Jenny as she was tripping away, and bestowed a 


Kate's Ship Comes In 


191 

hearty kiss on her round cheek. Phil Wilson gave 
one of Webster’s orations, and made the most 
brilliant impression of any of the five graduates. 

Then the exercises closed with the national 
anthem in which everybody joined. 

So at last it was all over. 

It was six o’clock, and Kate sat alone on the steps 
of the cottage. She was tired, and her gray, wistful 
eyes were raised tO' the mountain, so lovely in the 
dying sunshine. The chill of the typical California 
evening was already creeping into the air, and she 
was cold in the thin blue dimity. Yet she lingered, 
almost too tired to move, she told herself. 

Rose May had gone home with Mrs. Higgins and 
Cynthy to have some lemonade. She was coming 
home now, and with her was Mr. Hitchcock. She 
waved a letter excitedly as she drew near. 

Kate knew it had come, the decision from the Art 
League in regard to the work she had submitted. 
She went down the tiny flower-bordered path to 
meet the two at the gate. 

“ It came this morning, the postmaster said,” 


192 The Story of Kate 

spoke Rose May, “ and we never knew it.” She, too, 
was pale with excitement. 

Kate’s fingers grew cold with mingled fear and 
hope, but she summoned up her courage and opened 
the letter, and glanced quickly down the typewritten 
page. 

“ Oh, dear, oh, dear,” cried Rose May, and put 
her arms quick around her friend, who, she thought, 
was going to faint away. 

But Kate’s arms went just as tight around her. 
“ Oh, Rose May, I don’t deserve it. I don’t.” 

“May I read the letter?” asked Mr. Hitchcock. 
And it was well neither girl looked up just then to 
see how bright his own eyes were at that moment. 

Kate’s head nodded consent on Rose May’s 
shoulder. 

The secretary of the Art League begged leave to 
tell Miss Whitney, that though her work had not 
received one of the original prizes offered, owing 
to her evident lack of technical training, it had 
received a scholarship which went to that student 
whose work showed the greatest promise. The 
giver, who desired not to be known, wished therefore 



“BUT KATE’S ARMS WENT JUST AS TIGHT AROUND HER 






































































































































































































































Kate's Ship Comes In 193 

that she should receive one thousand dollars a year 
for five years, when it was hoped her ability, well- 
trained, should make her independent. This sum, 
with the above conditions attached, had already been 
placed in the bank in her name. 

“ I call that pretty good for my pupil of less than 
a year,” said Mr. Hitchcock, with his genial laugh. 
“ You’ll have to treat Rose May and me to cream- 
pop on that.” 

Kate did not hear him,. She was looking up at 
the mountain. She would be deserving, she would 
be deserving, her heart said over and over. What 
would her mother say? Oh, if she could only do 
something that would repay Mr. Hitchcock for his 
lessons! Her heart welled over with gratitude to 
him and to the unknown giver of the bequest. She 
thought of another picture to paint, and saw the 
desert stretch out before her, desolate but beautiful, 
as she had often seen it. Yes, she would paint a 
picture of the desert, nothing else, but as if it were 
the sea. 

The artist had been watching her, and read her 


expression. 


194 


The Story of Kate 


“ Is it the mountains again? ” he asked. 

And Kate, recalled to earth, shook her head, 
laughing. 

Rose May stood a little in the background, like a 
rose in her own garden. She was smiling as she 
looked at the two. In her breast was a secret hidden 
which she must never divulge. She had guessed it, 
with the kind of intuition that was often hers. 

It was Mr. Hitchcock who was the unknown giver. 

“ What is it? ” he asked, turning suddenly, “ what 
are you thinking about ? ” 

Rose May’s eyes were like blue forget-me-nots in 
the rain as she smiled back at him. She was think- 
ing that the world was beautiful to have people like 
him and Kate in it. She, too, could have cried in 
sheer thankfulness that God had made the world so 
good. 

“ Nothing,” she answered, “ only it all seems 
too good to be true, and yet it is. That is the strange 
thing.” 

“ It is a fairy story,” cried Kate, with the sparkle 
once more in her eyes; “ oh, it is, it is. There’s 
enough for* us both. You shall go with me. But, 
oh, Rose May, to think of what mother will say ! ” 


CHAPTER XL 


A Barn Studio 

In the fall Kate and Rose May went to San 
Francisco. It seemed a long time, much longer than 
it really was, since that wonderful spring day when 
the tidings of Kate’s good fortune had come to 
them at Green Hollow. For Kate there had fol- 
lowed the packing-up, the farewell to the friends 
in the little town, the return home, the tears and joy 
when she told her mother, and her father’s tender 
pride. The one disappointment had been Mrs. 
Whitney’s refusal to go up to the city with her 
daughter. 

“ Mother will come when she can afford it, dear,” 
she said to Kate ; “ the money was not given for 
my pleasure, but for your work at the League.” 

“ But there is plenty for us both,” Kate had 
protested, ready to cry. “ I don’t want anything 
without you.” 

19s 


196 


The Story of Kate 


“ Then you must save what you can, and perhaps 
it will take you to Paris sometime, for you can never 
have too many opportunities if you are to be a really 
great artist,” answered Mrs. Whitney, firmly. She 
sometimes felt a little sad that Kate was not to 
be a teacher. She felt as if her duckling had turned 
out to be a swan, and she dreaded lest her lack of 
sympathy for painting might separate her from her 
child, and Kate would look elsewhere for more 
intelligent appreciation. But when Kate drew a 
little sketch of her father, and put it in an embroid- 
ered frame of her own making for her mother, then 
Mrs. Whitney gave way, and laughed and cried 
at once. For there was the Colonel to the life, even 
to his limp and pipe. True, the drawing was faulty, 
but there he was, looking out drolly from the paper. 

“ And, oh, mother,” cried Kate, wild with joy 
at her mother’s approval, “ I’m going to be a por- 
trait painter yet, although I haven’t said anything 
about it to Mr. Hitchcock, as I think he cares only 
for landscape. And you mustn’t be sad when I go 
away to think I am not going back to college, for 


A Barn Studio 


197 

I just think I should die if I had to teach school. 
There ! ” 

Colonel Whitney laughed, and Mrs. Whitney was 
forced to smile, although she shook her head. 

Rose May had remained in Green Hollow during 
the summer, and worked hard. She rented her 
cottage furnished for eight dollars a month to an 
old aunt of Mr. Higgins, who had sold her ranch 
and come to town to live. She was a severe, mascu- 
line old lady, who announced that she came to Green 
Hollow for a rest, and not to be run over by the 
Higgins young ’uns. However, she sometimes gave 
Aaron or Billy a nickel, and once when Bobby ven- 
tured to visit her, she shut the door in his face, 
and when he used a naughty word she rushed out 
and dragged him in, and washed his little mouth 
with soap and water. 

“ I was there at the time,” Rose May told Kate, 
“ and you ought to have heard Bobby howl. She 
would come a month before I was ready to leave, 
and took the bedroom and made me sleep on the 
sofa in the parlour. And she mjade such a point 
of paying only a quarter of the month’s rent, be- 


198 


The Story of Kate 


cause she said she was obliged to pay only half 
the month’s rent anyway, as I shared the house 
that month. Then she took two dollars out of 
that half, because she said I kept her awake by 
talking in my sleep, so that she hadn’t had more 
than two dollars’ worth of comfort all that month. 
Wasn’t she awful mean? You know it was she 
brought up Mr. Higgins, and Mrs. Higgins, she 
once said to me, she bet that was what made him so 
awful glum.” 

That first fortnight in San Francisco they did 
little more than talk of the friends in Green Hollow, 
and the merry times of the past year. A check for 
one hundred and twenty-five dollars from the secre- 
tary of the League had been sent to Kate the first 
of September. The thousand dollars for the year 
was to be made in eight payments, the number of 
months the League was open. The two girls went 
to a students’ boarding-house which Mr. Hitchcock 
had recommended. They had not seen him since 
the spring, as he had gone abroad, and would not 
be back until the first of the year. 

The boarding-house did not prove to be satisfac- 


A Barn Studio 


199 

tory. The two girls were timid and constrained 
among so many strangers, and, moreover, the place 
was too expensive for Rose May. The first month’s 
board was going to take all her summer savings, 
and she had not found a position. 

Kate went to the League every morning. It was 
in a mansion that had belonged to one of the bo- 
nanza kings of San Francisco, who, finding his 
house too big, had given it to the State University. 
It stood high on Nob Hill, and she enjoyed the 
splendid view that rewarded her arduous climb to 
reach it. She worked from nine until twelve in the 
morning and from two until four in the afternoon, 
and even then, so great was her enthusiastic happi- 
ness, she felt that she had scarcely given any time 
to her work. The girl whose easel was next to 
hers proved to be pleasant and quite companionable. 
She said she would call on Kate and her friend, 
but one morning she told her that that pleasure 
would have to be postponed, for she was going 
to New York to visit a mlarried sister. 

“ My father has been called there suddenly on 
business, and has telegraphed that he will take me 


200 


The Story of Kate 


with him,” Miss Blaine said, as she was packing 
up her things. “ I'm really going to please him and 
mamma, for it always worried them to have me 
living in a barn, but I said it was Bohemian, and I 
was going to do it. The girl who was with me 
last year couldn’t come back this fall, and I did find 
it kind of lonesome, I must admit. When I first 
saw you, I wanted to ask you to come and live with 
me, but you said you had a friend with you.” 

“ Is it expensive ? ” asked Kate. 

“ No, indeed,” said Miss Blaine, folding her easel, 
“ the cheapest way, and lets one have a lot of spend- 
ing money for other things, you know.” 

“ Well, then,” cried Kate, her eyes bright, “ why 
couldn’t you let my friend and me rent that place 
of you ? ” 

“ So I could,” said Miss Blaine ; “ I’d already 
signed the lease for the winter, and thought papa 
would have to pay it. The rent is ten dollars a 
month. I know you’d like it. And you can use the 
furniture for the care of it, and that’ll save me 
storage. The furniture isn’t worth anything really, 


A Barn Studio 


201 


but it’ll save you buying things. Come on home 
with me this noon and see it.” 

Rose May missed Kate at lunch that noon, and, 
after waiting in vain for her to return, started out 
again to find a position. When she returned home, 
about four o’clock, she found Kate waiting, hat 
and gloves on, to go out. 

“ You walked to save car-fare,” she cried, as her 
friend came in, “ and you’re all tired out, I know.” 

Rose May shook her head, smiling. “ I’m not a 
bit tired.” Nevertheless she sat down wearily on 
the bed. “ I got that position at Smith & Clapp’s,” 
she announced, “ but it’s only two dollars a week. 
I wish we could find a cheaper boarding-place.” 

“ Well, we’re going right now to see one I’ve 
heard about,” Kate announced; “I’ve only been 
waiting for you to come home.” 

“ Let me fix your belt at the back then,” said 
Rose May, cheered by the prospect in spite of her 
weariness. “ Where is it ? ” 

“ Just follow me,” said Kate, gaily, “ and you’ll 
find out.” 

It was som'e distance and with a long hill to climb. 


202 The Story of Kate 

“ We never can afford it here,” said Rose May, 
as they reached a block of handsome houses. 

“ I didn’t say it was here,” said Kate, “ but near 
here.” She turned down a humble place that had 
once been a broad alley, but was now built up closely 
with poor houses of the tenement class. The dark 
little children swarming around, and the women 
gossiping on the stoops stared after the two girls 
as they passed. It was a small settlement of the 
Italians. At the end of this alley was a large 
stable which belonged to a magnificent old house 
that faced the street beyond. The people who 
owned it had closed it up, as they were living in 
Europe. 

“ I don’t think I’d like to live in a barn,” faltered 
Rose May, with a spasm of homesickness for her 
own respectable, rose-embowered little cottage. 

Kate turned a glowing face, and waved her hand. 
“ Come on.” 

There was a ladder in front of the door, so that 
no one could enter the house without going under it. 

“ I wouldn’t go under a ladder for anything,” 
cried Rose May. 


A Barn Studio 


203 


“ That's half the fun of it all,” Kate protested, 
beginning to feel cross. “ The people who lived here 
had this up just to show how little they believed in 
superstition.” 

“ Well, I’m afraid,” said Rose May. “ Mamma 
would never go under a ladder. Besides, I don’t 
think we ought to board with such queer people.” 

“ You’re just spoiling everything,” said Kate. 
“ What do you care about an old ladder?” She 
gave the ladder such a vigorous push that it fell 
down. “ There,” she cried, triumphantly, “ I hope 
you’re satisfied now.” 

“ But what will the people who live there say ? ” 
asked her companion, rather alarmed. 

“ I don’t care what they say,” cried Kate, in high 
glee, waving a key she had taken from her pocket. 
Then to Rose May’s amazement, she unlocked the 
door, and they entered. They were in a stable, swept 
bare and clean. There were the bins and stalls and 
garden tools, and some old bridles and halters hang- 
ing on the wall. A stairway led up into the loft, 
and up this Rose May followed her friend, feeling 
as if she were in a dream. At the landing was 


204 TAe Story of Kate 

another door, and here Kate produced another key. 
What could it be ? But Kate was in a teasing mood, 
and held the door shut after she had unlocked it. 

“ I’m the same fairy who turned the pumpkin into 
a coach for Cinderella,” she said, solemnly, as at 
last she flung open the door. 

Rose May gave a cry of delight and surprise. 

Such a loft for a stable ! The sliding-door, which 
had been built to receive bales of hay in former days, 
had been taken out, and a glass window that opened 
like a double-door substituted. There was an old- 
fashioned open-front Franklin stove, which the 
former occupants had picked up in a junk-shop. 
There was a lounge covered with pillows, and a 
hammock was swung across the corner near the big 
window. Near by was a low book-shelf. On the 
other side of the large loft was the kitchen corner. 
Shelves had been put up, and on these was an 
array of blue Japanese plates and saucers and plat- 
ters ; the cups hung from brass nails along 
the edges of the shelves. Below were hung the 
shining cooking utensils. About the walls were 
pinned a number of unframed sketches in black and 


A Barn Studio 


205 

white and in water-colours. The window curtains 
were made of coarse fish-net. 

“ And here is our bedroom,” cried Kate, opening 
the door of the room which had been the groom’s 
when the stable was in use. 

This room appealed to Rose May even more than 
the larger one. It was so dainty. There was mat- 
ting on the floor, and the furniture was of bamboo. 
The curtains and bed and bureau covers were in 
blue and white, and on the wall was a framed 
photograph of a madonna. There were two windows 
in this room which looked out upon the yard of 
the house to which the stable belonged. From 
these windows they had a magnificent view of the 
harbour and the Golden Gate. 

“ I’m thankful you like it,” said Kate, watching 
Rose May’s sweet face, “ for I never forgot how 
you took me into your cottage last year, and how 
happy I was, and now I feel as if I’d found this 
place almost more for you than for myself.” 

Here it was the two girls established themselves. 
It seemed lonely at first, but who could be afraid 
in a neighbourhood in which so many children 


206 The Story of Kate 

abounded? And if the Italian people did look 
dirty, and the ambition of the women seemed to 
consist in sunning themselves, still they looked 
happy, and always nodded a kindly greeting to the 
two young girls. Then, too, they were pictur- 
esque, which was a great deal in itself, as Kate 
said. Rose May made friends wdth many of the 
children, but most of all with a tiny boy, who shouted 
after her one day, “ I wish you was my sister.” 

This subtle flattery won her heart, and she some- 
times brought him home a bag of candy when she 
could afford it. One evening Alfonso’s father, who 
was gone all day with his hand-organ, played a 
serenade under the big window in the loft. He 
could not speak English as well as Alfonso, who 
went to school, so he shook his head in denial when 
Kate ran down with five cents for him, and gave her 
to understand, by gestures, that he did it because 
they were nice to little Alfonso. Every once in a 
while after that, they would hear him play under 
their window. They were neither of them educated 
in music, and so they enjoyed the hand-organ, just 
as they had taken pleasure in Mr. Love’s cornet. 


A Barn Studio 


207 


Once when the organ-grinder commenced a waltz, 
Kate started up, and pushing the furniture recklessly 
out of the way, seized Rose May, and the two had 
a dance that left them breathless and laughing. 

They had their jokes together. And sometimes 
Rose May got the better of Kate, and then it was 
more fun than ever, as when, one night, Kate, who 
had been doing her hair up different ways in front 
of the mirror and quite admiring herself, asked her 
friend what her best points were. 

“ Thinking the matter over carefully/’ answered 
Rose May, demurely, “ I should say, Kate, that your 
best points were your elbows and your knees.” 

And then, how Kate had flown at her, and pounded 
her with pillows, until Rose May took it all back! 
They never forgot the fun they had that evening. 

Then at night what a view they had from their 
bedroom window! They looked down upon the 
city, and the towns across the bay where lights 
sparkled along the hills like diamond necklaces, and 
mingled with the stars. Kate used to look over at 
Berkeley where the university was, and think of 
the year she spent there. 


20 8 


The Story of Kate 


They had breakfast and supper together. Rose 
May took her lunch in the cafe of the big apartment- 
store in which she worked, and Kate took hers at a 
little restaurant not far from the League. The 
second month Rose May’s wages were raised to 
three dollars a week. Kate would not let her pay 
any of the rent of the loft, and had her way, as she 
usually did where they two were concerned. 

Rose May had many wistful moods these days. 
Only her loyal affection for Kate kept her in the 
city. She realised that Kate could not see the differ- 
ences between their lives, and not for anything would 
she have uttered a complaining word. While Kate 
was at the Art League making congenial friends and 
constantly stimulated to the best that was in her, 
little Rose May sat -in a close workroom, sewing 
hour after hour. It was one thing to be a milliner 
in Green Hollow, and quite another thing to be an 
apprentice in San Francisco. And, while she liked 
the forewoman, she was too shy to enjoy the other 
girls, who had their own amusements, which con- 
sisted chiefly in talking over the cheap plays and 
dances to which they went, and again of their 


A Barn Studio 


209 

troubles, for some of them had hard times and 
helped to support a family. Rose May learned 
much of the sordid side of life these days, and it 
made her more thoughtful than she had ever been. 
One could go on being a child in Green Hollow, 
but in the city it was different. Sometimes she 
sighed unconsciously. 

After awhile, in spite of their occasional serenades 
from Alfonso’s father, they admitted to each other 
that their evenings were often lonely. They read 
Dickens aloud, but this only brought more to mind 
the dear friends of the past year, Mrs. Higgins, 
Cynthy, Mr. Hitchcock, and Mr. Love. 

“ Seems to me I’d give almost anything to hear 
him blowing his cornet across the street once more,” 
Kate remarked, dropping the copy of “ Bleak 
House ” in her lap. 

“ Or to have Mrs. Higgins come in with one 
of her loaf-cakes,” suggested Rose May, smiling. 

They heard a knock on the big barn door below, 
but this did not startle them. Alfonso had formed 
a habit of coming in lately. Kate went over to the 
window, and opened it. 


2 IO 


The Story of Kate 


“ Go away, Alfonso,” she called down. “ It’s too 
late for a little boy to come in to-night. It’s eight 
o’clock, and, besides, Miss Rose May’s tired.” 

“ It’s Phil Wilson,” called back a sturdy voice, 
and the two girls with a shriek of delight raced down 
the stairs to let him in. 

“ We thought we’d just about die to-night,” 
panted Rose May, “ we were so homesick.” 

“ I thought I’d get homesick myself,” said Phil, 
as he followed them up to the loft, “ but I haven’t 
had time. My, how spruce it looks up here ! It takes 
girls to fix up a place.” 

“ How did you know where to find us ? ” asked 
Kate. 

“ I heard it from Cynthy Higgins back to home,” 
he said. “ I had to go back to get a couple of cows 
from father.” 

“ What an awful appetite you must have! I’m 
ashamed of you, Phil Wilson,” cried Kate, merrily, 
nudging Rose May, as the two sat on the sofa 
opposite their guest. 

“ I didn’t get them to eat,” said Phil, indig- 
nantly, for he was never quick to see a joke, t{ ‘ but 


A Barn Studio 


21 I 


some of us fellows from the country have started 
up a milk-ranch. All the professors and a lot of 
the town-people take from us, and we’re making 
money. But we give good milk, too, you bet.” 

“ I hope you’ll bring us over a bottle of cream, 
then, sometime,” said Kate. “ We’d appreciate it, 
with our coffee.” 

“ I will,” answered Phil. “ If you were on the 
route, you could have some every morning for 
nothing. I won’t be over very soon. I’m a fresh- 
man, you see, and have to drive the early route. 
One of the fellows said he’d take it for me to- 
morrow, so I could come over here. You see I 
have to go to bed early as a general thing.” 

He remained until nine o’clock, and told them 
his little store of home news. Both the girls wanted 
to know particularly about Cynthy. 

“ I only saw her once,” he told them ; “ I didn’t 
know but that I’d find her up here visiting you.” 

“ How stupid of us never to think of that before,” 
cried Kate. “ I’ll write to Mr. Higgins myself, and 
see if he won’t let her come.” 

They showed Phil down to the door, Kate carry- 


212 


The Story of Kate 


in g a candle. When she was rich, she said, she 
was going to buy a lot of brass candlesticks. 

“ Good night, Senator Wilson,” she said, nudging 
Rose May. 

“ Oh, you can’t tease me, Miss Kate,” retorted 
Phil, sturdily. “ I may get to be senator yet.” And 
they heard him go whistling down the alley. 

“You ought to be more polite to him,” said Rose 
May, reprovingly. 

“ Well, he’s so conceited,” said Kate, not thinking 
she was a bit conceited herself. “ Let’s write to 
Cynthy to-night.” 


CHAPTER XII. 


In San Francisco 

So the letter was written, and Cynthy came, 
timid, dark-eyed, silent, as little suited to the city 
tumult as a wild-flower to a city garden. Her 
father wished her to go, and the thought of opposing 
him had not entered her mind. She was as obedient 
as if he had been stern instead of most indulgent. 

“ You must get advantages, Cynthy,” he said, 
fondly. “ Get your ma to fix you up pretty, and 
have a nice time. You might take pianny lessons.” 

Green Hollow did not offer much in the way of 
dress, but Mrs. Higgins bought what she could with 
a full purse, and Cynthy arrived in a fresh brown and 
white calico wrapper, and a wide straw hat, trimmed 
with roses by her mother. When Kate met her at the 
depot, she did not know whether she wanted most 
to laugh, or stand and stare in admiration, for 

213 


214 


The Story of Kate 


Cynthy was so very beautiful, and yet so like a 
country girl. Rose May had to be at the store, and 
so could not meet them. They lugged Cynthy’s 
big carpet-bag between them to the car, and rode 
up to their corner. Kate did all the talking, and 
Cynthy answered in monosyllables, or with her 
grave smile. 

“ Don’t you remember the first night I ever met 
you, the night you and I went for a pail of water in 
the moonlight, and you smiled across at me? ” said 
Kate, giving Cynthy’s hand a little squeeze, as they 
sat in the car. “ I’m going to paint your picture, 
Cynthy.” 

“ Pa ’lows I’m the best looking of the family,” 
said Cynthy, serenely. 

“ Well, here we are,” said Kate, signalling the 
conductor. 

When Rose May came home that night, she found 
Cynthy in one of her shirt-waists, and wearing 
Kate’s skirt. The table was set for supper, and 
there was one of Mrs. Higgins’s frosted loaf-cakes. 

“ We’ve been out shopping this afternoon,” Kate 
announced, “ and bought Cynthy three shirt-waists 


In San Francisco 


215 


and a gray suit. Her father has given her a lot of 
money, and I tell her we don’t wear wrappers in the 
city.” 

“ I like wrappers best,” said Cynthy, calmly, “ but 
Kate, she don’t. I saw she kept looking me over.” 

Kate giggled. “ Well, I like style.” 

Cynthy smiled. She was not in the least offended. 

“ The Italians about here have taken you for one 
of them,” said Rose May, as she sat at the head of 
the table, pouring tea. “ One woman called out to 
me to know who you were.” 

“ I wish I were dark,” said Kate ; “ but then 
I’d be looking at myself in the glass all the time, 
and people might think I was vain. Aren’t you 
ashamed of yourself, Rose May, eating the loaf- 
cake first? Mother always made me eat the sub- 
stantial? first.” 

They wrote and invited Phil Wilson over to tea 
the next Sunday, and he came, bringing a big bottle 
of cream, which amused them very much. He had 
always had a boyish fancy for Cynthy, and he 
talked to her of his plans quite to the exclusion of 
the other two girls. Green Hollow was growing, 


216 


The Story of Kate 


he said, and by the time he finished his law course, 
it would be big enough to support a lawyer. And 
later he might go into politics. After supper Kate 
read some of her favourite poems aloud, and Rose 
May sang several songs in her sweet voice without 
any accompaniment. Altogether, it was an evening 
full of content, and four young people, who were all 
in secret a trifle homesick, forgot it in being together. 
Phil had grown thin with the hard work he was 
doing, but he looked well and big and manly. 
Kate promised to bring Cynthy over to Berkeley 
some day and let him show her around the 
university. 

Cynthy had come in the latter part of November. 
The days passed quickly. Every afternoon she 
called for Kate at the Art League, and these days 
Kate came home to lunch. She would always find 
Cynthy waiting on the sunny step of the open stable, 
as if she were akin to the lazy, cheerful Italian 
women with their swarms of children. It reminded 
Kate of Mrs. Higgins, who used to sit placidly rock- 
ing, as she looked up at the mountain. She tried 


In San Francisco 


21 7 

in vain to infuse some of her own energy into 
Cynthy. 

One afternoon at the League, Kate became con- 
scious of a stir of excitement, and, looking up from 
her drawing, saw Mr. Hitchcock. It had been an- 
nounced early in the fall that he would not resume 
his criticisms at the League until the first of the new 
year, and it was not yet the first of December. He 
went now from one student to the next, giving a 
brief but sure criticism of what they were doing. 
Here he took a crayon and made a few quick 
strokes by way of illustration; again, he merely 
nodded and passed on. Kate was the last to be 
approached, and she felt a nervous apprehension. It 
seemed to her that she had never fully appreciated 
before all that it meant to have been his pupil in 
the way that she had been at Green Hollow. When 
he at last reached her, he did not seem at all sur- 
prised to find her there, but shook hands cordially, 
and directed his attention immediately to her draw- 
ing. Then he moved on. Kate was vaguely hurt. 
He had not even inquired for Rose May, nor asked 
where they were living. He was looking better 


2l8 


The Story of Kate 


than when she last saw him, and the bright level 
gaze of his eyes seemed very natural. 

As Mr. Hitchcock passed through the long picture- 
gallery on his way out of the building after leaving 
the class-room, he saw a girl sitting in a dim corner 
in a high, carved chair. The light from above fell 
on her dark head, and something familiar in the 
outlines made him pause. 

“ It’s Cynthy,” said a soft voice. 

“ Why, Cynthy,” he cried, crossing over to her, 
“ what are you doing here? You don’t mean to 
tell me you were able to come away from Green 
Hollow?” 

“ Pa said as he wanted I should get advantages,” 
she answered. 

Mr. Hitchcock laughed heartily. “ So you’re 
sitting here making people think you’re a picture, 
are you ? ” 

“ No,” said Cynthy, “ I’m waiting to walk home 
with Kate. I don’t like the city, nohow,” she added. 

That night Kate told Rose May that Mr. Hitch- 
cock had returned. 

“ Is he coming to see us to-night ? ” asked Rose 


In San Francisco 


219 


May, “ because if he is we’d better get the dishes 
out of the way quick.” 

Kate shook her head. “No,” she answered, 
soberly, “ he didn’t say anything about seeing us, 
nor even ask where we lived. He’s too great an 
artist, I suppose, to come to see us here in the city. 
He wouldn’t have time.” 

“ It hurts my feelings,” said Rose May, with a 
quiver in her voice. “ Didn’t he say just the least 
little word?” 

“ No,” answered Kate, “ I guess he’s too busy.” 

The two older girls were much depressed by 
this incident. Cynthy did not mind, and paid little 
if any attention to their comments and speculations. 
Mr. Hitchcock’s attitude made them feel suddenly 
lonely, and as if they had no friend in the great 
city. 

“ But, anyway,” Kate wound up at last, in her 
intense desire always to be reasonable, “ it was a 
great deal to have known him when he had time to 
know us. And think, if it hadn’t been for his good- 
ness we never should have been here, and I never 
would have won the scholarship.” 


220 The Story of Kate 

“ That’s true,” said Rose May, and remembered 
how she had guessed that it was he who was the 
unknown benefactor. But she had never said a word 
of this to Kate, knowing that her friend's sensitive 
pride might make her give up the gift and all the 
advantages it entailed. So she smiled now at this 
memory. “ I suppose it isn’t that he’s forgotten 
us, but he’s other people to be kind to now. We 
mustn’t be selfish.” 

“ Of course not,” Kate assented, but she sighed. 
She was deeply disappointed, for she had hoped to 
hear about his trip, and of the galleries he must 
have been in. Since attending the League, she had 
heard so much about Paris from the students that 
she was filled with ambition to go there sometime. 

“ Look at Cynthy,” whispered Rose May. 

Cynthy sat on the edge of the lounge, looking 
out of the big window. The moon was shining in, 
and showed her face wistful and sad. She had 
not seemed like herself lately, but had been listless 
and more silent than ever. 

“ What are you thinking of, Cynthy ? ” asked 


In San Francisco 


221 


Kate, crossly. She felt out of sympathy with the 
world in general. 

“ The mountains,” said Cynthy. 

“ Oh, goodness,” said Kate, impatiently, with a 
little tap of her foot. But she too thought of the 
mountains, the long red and purple range near her 
home. Oh, if she could only see, this minute, her 
father and mother and Chung and John ! “I think 
you’re real disagreeable, Cynthy, to be thinking of 
other things when you’re here with us,” she said. 

At this Rose May laughed, and her gaiety restored 
Kate’s good humour. 

“Well, I don’t care,” she admitted; “I do feel 
cross sometimes. Everybody does.” 

“ We’re forgetting all about the marketing,” cried 
Rose May, jumping up. “ Had you forgotten it was 
Saturday evening? ” 

They were glad of the diversion thus opportunely 
afforded, and started off gaily enough with their 
little basket. Miss Blaine had told Kate that they 
could save money by going to the market Saturday 
night, when the dealers marked their fresh wares 
cheap rather than keep them over until Monday. 


222 


The Story of Kate 


“ We’ll get some artichokes, and have salad, and 
some slices of cold meat, so we won’t have any cook- 
ing to do. And what else?” said Kate. 

“ Some sweet potatoes,” suggested Rose May, 
“ and some more orange marmalade.” 

The market, which was quite near them, was 
bright and cheerful and filled with people. There 
was a general air of festivity, and the three girls, 
after they had made their purchases, wandered 
about, attracted by the fish-department, the flower- 
stalls, and the baker’s display. They bought some 
squares of fresh gingerbread with chocolate frosting 
to eat going home, and then they went over to the 
butcher’s to see which of them weighed the most. 
Once Cynthy became separated from them, and it 
was some time before they found her. Then they 
caught sight of her standing bewildered in a corner, 
too frightened to go in search of them, but looking 
eagerly at each passer-by. 

That night Kate, who slept on the lounge in 
the big room while her guest was there, woke 
startled, and opened her eyes to see Cynthy sitting 
on the foot of the lounge in the attitude she had 


In San Francisco 


223 

been in early in the evening, staring out of the 
window. 

“ Oh, it’s you,” she said, sleepily. “ I thought it 
was a burglar.” And her fright being over, she 
was so sleepy that her eyes closed. But when the 
cheerful sunlight wakened her, she remembered 
that white, wistful figure, as if it had been a kind of 
ghost and not Cynthy at all. She could almost have 
believed she had dreamed it. 

This Sunday morning Rose May and Kate decided 
not to follow their usual practice of going to church. 
Rose May was tired, and Kate wanted to write some 
letters. 

“ I ’low I’ll go by myself,” Cynthy remarked, as 
she stood staring out of the window down the 
bright alley. Most of the Italians had already been 
to early mass, and they now sat about on their 
front door-steps, men and women, with the children 
swarming about. How gay they looked in their 
Sunday attire! Never had the sky seemed so fair 
a blue. She could almost see the mountains at 
Green Hollow rising against it. With the exception 
of the cheerful alley, the city seemed a gloomy and 


224 


The Story of Kate 


terrible place to her. The only place she liked to go 
to Was church. There it was quiet and cool, and 
the high columns made her think of the deep red- 
woods at home, and the organ-notes of the wind 
in the branches and the birds; the lighted candles 
in the gloom of the altar were like stars. 

“ I ’low I’ll go by myself,” she repeated. 

“ Wait until to-night and I’ll go with you,” said 
Kate, looking up from her writing. 

But Cynthy was putting on her hat. 

“ Well, go to that big church down the next street, 
then,” said Kate ; “ it’s the nearest one, and you 
won’t miss your way.” She felt a little uncom- 
fortable about letting her go alone, but she was 
writing a letter to her mother which she should have 
written earlier in the week. 

About eleven o’clock the two girls heard some one 
knock at the door below. 

“ There’s Cynthy back,” said Rose May. “ I’ll 
go down and let her in. I guess she was late for 
church.” 

She ran down the stairs, and Kate heard her open 
the great barn door, and then laugh in pleased sur- 


In San Francisco 


225 

prise. In another moment she came up-stairs and 
ushered in Mr. Hitchcock. 

“ Well, how did you two girls ever happen to 
stow yourselves away in this corner ?” he asked, 
staring genially about him. “ I declare, you make 
me think of two little barn mice. I went to the 
boarding-house where I supposed you were, and 
they sent me here.” 

They made him sit in the biggest chair, and both 
of them talked at once, eager to tell him all their 
little happenings. 

“ And last night we felt so sorry, for Kate thought 
you would be too busy ever to come to see us, but 
here you are,” ended Rose May, triumphantly. 

Mr. Hitchcock smiled at her. “ So you’ve turned 
out a full-fledged milliner, I understand.” 

“ No,” answered Rose May, with a truthful blush, 
“ I’m only an apprentice up here in the city. I was 
more down in Green Hollow.” 

“ We all were,” he answered, laughing at her. 
“ We had more elbow-room. And over in Europe it 
was worse and more crowded yet.” 

“ Were you in Paris? ” asked Kate, eagerly. “ I 


226 The Story of Kate 

have heard so many of the students at the League 
talking about going there.” 

“ I don’t want you to get any idea of going there 
into your head,” he said. “ There are too many of 
our bright American girls over there now not learn- 
ing any more than they could at home, and often not 
having enough to eat. No, Miss Kate, Paris isn’t 
the place for you to go to for many years yet. Trust 
me in this, for I know.” 

“ I suppose you do,” Kate admitted, ruefully, “ but 
you just ought to hear some of the girls talk.” 

“ A rich girl can try it and be none the worse for 
the experience, but it might bring a poor girl to 
the verge of starvation,” he answered, so gravely, 
that she was impressed in spite of her desire not 
to be. 

“ Did you go to Rome, as you said? ” asked Rose 
May. 

The artist’s eyes kindled. “ Ah, Rome,” he 
echoed, “ there is the place for you to go. And 
Venice, with the picturesque, dirty beggars sitting 
in the sun, and the sunsets and tall buildings reflected 
in the water. The sky is like blue turquoise. I 


In San Francisco 


22 7 


brought home some sketches which I must show 
you. I shall have to give a studio tea for you young 
ladies, sha’n’t I? And I brought something else 
from Venice beside sketches.” He went to his over- 
coat pocket and took out a package wrapped in 
tissue-paper. “ I brought home a Roman scarf 
for each of you,” he said, unrolling the package. 

Kate unfolded hers. It was so soft that it 
scarcely seemed as if it could be a yard wide, and 
it was several yards long with fringed ends. The 
colours were gorgeous, in stripes of scarlet and old 
gold and green and blue. 

“ It’s like a gipsy’s sash ! ” cried Kate, de- 
lighted. 

“ That’s why I selected it for you,” he told her. 
“ You haven’t black eyes and hair, but you have the 
soul of a gipsy. Hasn’t she, Rose May ? ” 

Rose May smiled. She, too, thought so. Kate 
had a wild spirit that puzzled her. Her own sash 
lay in her lap — in shimmering folds of pale pink 
and blue and white. 

“ And I brought home one for Cynthy,” he said. 
“ Isn’t it time she was home from church ? ” 


228 


The Story of Kate 


“ It’s past time,” Rose May stated, with an 
anxious glance at the clock. 

“ Oh, Cynthy walks slow,” said Kate, who was 
standing in front of a mirror, trying the effects of 
the scarf on herself. And although it contained the 
very colours her mother always thought she couldn’t 
wear, yet it was wondrously becoming. 

Another hour passed. Then Rose May, who had 
been rather silent, said she was going out to meet 
Cynthy. 

“ Why, she’ll be back,” interposed Kate, impa- 
tiently, for she hated to see their pleasant morning 
brought to a close. And she couldn’t quite under- 
stand Rose May’s anxiety, having no timidity about 
the streets herself. 

“We might all go,” proposed Mr. Hitchcock. 

So the three went out together, and strolled 
along, enjoying the fresh, warm air of the sunny 
noontide. 

They went first to the church, and found it big 
and empty and silent. They came out again, and 
stared about. 

“ I guess she must have gone home by a round- 


In San Francisco 


229 


about way,” said Kate, feeling some anxiety herself, 
for the first time. “ We’ll find her there waiting 
for us.” 

But Cynthy was not there. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

Cynthy 

Mr. Hitchcock sent the two girls home and 
promised to let them know as soon as he found 
Cynthy. He telephoned to the police department 
and then to the hospital. He feared that Cynthy 
might have been hurt in crossing some street. 
And this instinctive fear on his part proved true. 
She had not gone into church, as the service 
had begun when she reached the building, and so 
she had wandered aimlessly on, and finally found 
herself on the busiest thoroughfare of the city. In 
trying to make her way across the street, bewildered 
by the cable-cars, she took a backward step, and was 
thrown violently down by a bicycle rider. When 
the bystanders crowded around her, she seemed 
dazed and would not speak. So, as they could not 


230 


Cynthy 


231 


get her address from her, and she appeared to be 
really hurt, an ambulance was called, and she was 
taken to the hospital. 

“We could not get her to speak,” the nurse told 
Mr. Hitchcock, “ and came to the conclusion that 
she must be dumb.” 

In spite of his anxiety, the artist laughed. It 
was so like Cynthy to be obstinately silent. He was 
not a little relieved to learn that she was not seri- 
ously injured. He could not help feeling responsible 
for the coming of the girls to San Francisco. 

“ If it hadn’t been for the fact that Kate had 
such remarkable talent, I never should have advised 
it,” he told himself, as he hastened back to Rose 
May and Kate to let them know about Cynthy. 

He had not asked to see her, for he thought it best 
she should see her two young friends first, but 
he told the nurse in charge to give her a private 
room. Her shoulder was badly bruised and her 
ankle sprained. In a few days she would be able 
to go home. 

When an hour later the two girls entered 
Cynthy’s room they found her lying on the narrow 


232 The Story of Kate 

white bed, with a look in her eyes as if she were 
some wild thing caught in a net. 

“ I ’low,” said she, speaking for the first time 
since the accident, “ that pa’ll kill that man what 
knocked me down with his bicycle.” 

And it was such a different speech from what 
they had expected that Kate laughed, although a 
minute before she had been all ready to cry. 

“We ought never to have let you go out alone,” 
cried Rose May. 

“ I can’t help laughing,” said Kate; “ for if you 
had really been killed by going to church every one 
would have said you were just an angel.” And 
then she broke down and sobbed. “ It’s all my fault 
that you’re hurt, Cynthy, because I was such a 
selfish pig as to let you go off alone when I knew 
you were afraid to cross the streets.” 

It was nearly five o’clock, and the two remained 
until six, when the nurse brought in Cynthy’s supper. 
It was a delicate little meal, but she only ate a bit 
of the bread, and then pushed the tray away. 

“ I think you must go,” said the nurse, who was 


Cynthy 233 

a pleasant young woman. “ Our patient seems tired 
and had better go to sleep now.” 

So they hurried away after fluttering over Cynthy, 
and kissing her good night several times. They had 
forgotten all about Mr. Hitchcock, whom they had 
left in the parlour. He was not offended at their 
long delay, but pleased to see their faces bright and 
happy once more. 

“ For Cynthy is only a little hurt,” said Kate, 
“ and will be home so soon with us that I don’t 
think we ought to write to her father and worry 
him, do you?” 

And Mr. Hitchcock agreed with her. 

The next morning Kate took over the Roman sash 
to Cynthy. Cynthy was looking paler than the night 
before, and she only had a faint smile for the 
lovely silk that Kate held up for her to see. 

Kate went over every morning and read aloud to 
Cynthy the week that followed, and went to work 
in the League only in the afternoons. Then she had 
supper ready on the table for Rose May when she 
came home at half-past six, that they might reach 
the hospital as early in the evening as possible. 


234 


The Story of Kate 


At the end of the week, Cynthy, to the surprise 
of all, showed no desire to leave the hospital. In 
fact, she seemed less well. Her face and fingers, 
usually so brown, were white. So the physician 
advised them to let her remain another week. 

“ She is suffering more from the shock than any- 
thing else,” he said, “ and needs a complete rest.” 

Kate alone was worried. “ She doesn’t take a 
bit of interest in my reading,” she confided to Rose 
May, “ and I can’t get her to talk. I think I’ll 
take that basket she was weaving over to her, and 
see if it won’t interest her.” 

So she did not go to the League that morning, 
but went over to the hospital with the basket and 
a new magazine. 

Cynthy was lying listlessly on her pillow, staring 
at the wall. On the table were some roses Mr. 
Hitchcock had sent. 

“ How fragrant they are,” cried Kate. “ Don’t 
they just smell sweet? I’m going to pin the prettiest 
one of all on you, and I’m going to put this one 
in your braid the way one sees it done in pictures.” 

“ I ’low the roses are bigger in Green Hollow,” 


Cynthy 235 

said Cynthy, submitting to Kate’s adorning, but 
showing no enthusiasm. 

“ I’ve brought your basket for you to work at 
while I read,” Kate continued. “ Now let me pile 
the pillows up behind you. And I’ve the funniest 
story here you ever heard. It’s all about a couple 
of sailors.” 

But neither the roses nor cheerful tone brought 
a smile to Cynthy’s lips, and although she sat up 
obediently and began her weaving, her pale fingers 
but played with the straws, and after awhile she lay 
back listlessly on her pillow, and the dark eyes 
seemed to be gazing far beyond Kate. It gave Kate 
a nervous shiver to see her lying so quietly, and she 
remembered with a kind of dread the night she had 
awakened and seen Cynthy sitting on the foot of her 
bed staring out the loft window, as if she were a 
ghost. 

The nurse came in to rub Cynthy’s sprained ankle, 
and to take off the old bandage and replace it with 
a fresh one. 

“ Does it hurt ? ” she asked. 

Cynthy shook her head. It might not have been 


236 The Story of Kate 

her ankle for all the concern she seemed to evince 
in it. 

“ I don’t believe it is really sprained,” said the 
nurse, puzzled. “ I’m going to try leaving off the 
bandage, and see if it swells up again.” 

Even Cynthy’s foot, now that the swelling was 
gone, looked thin and white. And Kate remembered 
how bare and brown her feet used to be, such sturdy 
feet, that wandered untiringly over the mountains. 
How free they had been until she, Kate, had begged 
Cynthy to wear shoes and stockings ! 

“ Oh, dear,” thought poor Kate, “ I think too 
much of appearances, and perhaps it was never 
meant for Cynthy to wear shoes and stockings. 
Some way I feel this is all my own fault.” 

At the beginning of the third week the rest all 
seemed to see what Kate had known right along. 
Cynthy was no better. 

“ We’ll wait a couple of days, and then, if she is 
no better, send for her father,” said Mr. Hitchcock ; 
“ but it’s nonsense to think anything is the matter 
with her. She never had a sick day in her life.” 


Cynthy 


2 37 

“ I think that it’s staying in bed so long which 
makes her weak/’ Rose May had suggested. 

“ I believe that’s the solution of the whole matter,” 
he had answered. “ You girls must make her get up 
and dress.” He did not think any of his young 
ladies looked as well as they did a year ago in 
Green Hollow. Rose May looked a little frail, and 
Kate was restless and excited over Cynthy’s lassi- 
tude. The several times he had gone in to make 
Cynthy a short visit, she had happened to be excited, 
and the transient colour in her face had deceived 
him. 

During these days Rose May cherished a 
romance. Sewing leaves the mind free, and many 
a dull hour in the gloomy work-room she passed in 
happy dreaming. She felt that Mr. Hitchcock cared 
for Kate, and although he must be nearly twice 
as old, yet that ought not to make any difference. 
Was not Rose May’s own dear father twice as old 
as his gentle young wife? And it seemed so suitable 
to her that two artists should marry. 

One evening the two girls came home from the 


238 The Story of Kate 

hospital more depressed about Cynthy than they had 
been before. 

All during the hour they were there she had 
neither spoken nor smiled, but would merely nod 
her assent to any question, and then turn her eyes 
away from them and stare at the wall. Her dumb 
misery extended itself to her two visitors, until 
they, too, sat silent, not knowing what to do, and 
were glad for the first time when the nurse came in 
at eight o’clock to tell them they must go. 

They hurried home. Rose May was shivering 
when they stepped off the electric car. 

“ I’m afraid you’ve caught cold,” said Kate, 
“ and if you’re sick whatever shall we do? ” 

“ It isn’t that,” answered Rose May, clinging 
close to her companion, “ but I feel as if the real 
Cynthy had gone away, and this is only her ghost.” 

“ Oh, how can you say such an awful thing ! ” 
cried Kate. “ I’m going to write to her father this 
very night, for I think she’s going to die.” 

They turned into the alley, passed the lighted tene- 
ment houses and entered their barn, and climbed 
wearily to the loft. Kate sat down, and wrote the 


Cynthy 


239 


letter to Mr. Higgins at once, without taking off her 
hat and jacket. She worded it carefully, so as not 
to frighten him,, and did not mention how strangely 
ill she considered Cynthy, but dwelt upon the fact 
that it was only a sprained ankle. 

“ I’ll go out and mail this in the box at the 
corner,” she said; “ isn’t it lucky we have a stamp? 
Now, don’t you come with me, for I know you’re 
tired to death.” 

When she returned a little later, Rose May was 
lying asleep on the lounge, where she had thrown 
herself after starting the fire, for the evening was 
chilly. 

“ I won’t wake her just yet,” thought Kate, “ until 
I’ve straightened up.” She put a shawl gently over 
her, and then proceeded to wash the tea dishes, which 
they had left, and to set the little table again for 
breakfast. She was so tired that she began to 
think of the queerest things, and even wondered 
what the peculiar flavour was that Chung always put 
in his birthday cakes, and why Mrs. Higgins liked 
pink best of all colours when it was so unbecoming 


240 The Story of Kate 

to her. What would she think if she knew about 
Cynthy? 

Kate recalled what her mother had so often said 
about having a prayer in one’s heart when troubled, 
and that it was a great consolation. “ It seems to 
me I’ve had a prayer in my heart for days that 
Cynthy would get better, but it doesn’t seem to help.” 

When the table was set, she sat down in front of 
the fire which was blazing brightly in the cheerful, 
homely old stove. The reflection was red on her 
thoughtful face as she sat, chin on hand, gazing at 
the flames. 

“ If I could only talk it over with mother,” she 
thought, “ for we don’t any of us know what’s the 
matter with Cynthy. The doctor and nurse say it 
can’t be her shoulder nor ankle, and Mr. Hitchcock 
and Rose May think it’s weakness from staying in 
bed. But I know it’s something else, and she won’t 
tell us what it is.” 

She set her mouth and drew her brows together in 
a way that made her look like her mother. “ I’ll 
think it out somehow, just what it is she won’t 
tell us,” and her mind travelled back over her early 


Cynthy 


241 


acquaintance with Cynthy. She recalled the first 
time she had ever seen her, that first eventful night 
at Green Hollow when she had visited the Higginses. 
What a glowing, brown, beautiful Cynthy! What 
a contrast to the Cynthy, pale, dumb, and silent in 
the hospital ! 

She brushed away her tears. If Cynthy should 
die! And she had grown to love her almost as 
dearly as Rose May, though there never could be any 
friend quite as dear as Rose May for Kate. She 
remembered how many times Cynthy had called 
for her at the schoolhouse, the faithful brown eyes 
that gazed at her in such timid affection. Then 
there were the Dickens evenings when she had come 
down with her mother, and Kate could never forget 
the time — the time — 

She sat erect ; her eyes grew bright. 

The time that Cynthy — 

“ Why did I never see it before ? ” cried Kate. 

She ran over and shook Rose May. 

“ Wake up, quick,” she cried, “ I’ve guessed what 
it is.” 

“ What is it ? ” asked Rose May, in a terrified 


242 The Story of Kate 

whisper, clutching Kate. “ Did you hear some- 
thing?” 

“ Don’t you remember when we were reading 
about the debtors’ prison in ‘ Pickwick Papers ? ’ ” 
commenced Kate. 

“ Yes,” said Rose May, with a little moan of 
fright. “ Oh, do you think some one has escaped 
from prison, and is trying to get in ? What shall we 
do?” 

Kate gave her a vigorous shake. “ Wake up. 
You’re dreaming. No one is trying to get in. Pm 
telling you about Cynthy.” 

“ You weren’t,” said Rose May, beginning to cry, 
“ you said some one from the debtors’ prison was 
trying to get in.” 

“ I didn’t either,” Kate retorted; “ how disagree- 
able you are ! You don’t seem to care anything about 
Cynthy.” 

“ Yes, I do,” said Rose May, rubbing her eyes, 
and still puzzled. 

“ Now don’t go and say I said something when 
I didn’t,” said Kate, “ but listen, because it’s awfully 
important. You remember our Dickens evenings, 


Cynthy 


243 


when we were reading about the debtors’ prison? 
I looked up, and saw that Cynthy was frightened. 
Then she told us that she had never thought of 
prisons before ; that there were no prisons in 
the mountains. That’s the trouble with her now. 
She is afraid of the city, and the hospital seems 
like a prison to her, and she’s just dying of home- 
sickness. That’s what’s the trouble with her. She’s 
got the same look in her eyes now that she had the 
night we read about the prison.” 

“ Then why didn’t she tell us ? ” asked Rose May, 
doubtingly. 

Kate gave an impatient gesture. “ Because she’s 
just Cynthy, I guess, and the worse she feels the 
more she keeps it to herself. Don’t you remember 
how Mrs. Higgins said she never could tell when 
Mr. Higgins was sick ? Smooth out your hair, and 
hurry up and get your things on.” 

“ Where are we going?” asked Rose May, be- 
wildered. 

“ To the hospital as quick as we can, to tell her 
she can go back to Green Hollow just as quick as 
she gets well.” 


244 The Story of Kate 

“ But will they let us see her so late ? ” asked 
Rose May. 

“ Then we can leave a message with the nurse,” 
answered Kate, and go she would, although it was 
then past eleven. 


9 


CHAPTER XIV. 

A Midnight Errand 

The fog had blown in from the ocean. The 
electric lights down the hill, as they stood waiting 
for the cars, were but faint blurs in the darkness. 
Kate liked the dampness, the cool rush of the wind, 
and the excitement of their being out at that time 
of night. But Rose May shivered and felt inde- 
scribably desolate. Moreover, she had not the faith 
in their errand that Kate had. One did not die of 
homesickness, or she herself would have been ill, 
she knew, for she longed so at times to be back in 
Green Hollow that only love for Kate kept her 
in the city. 

Two cars whizzed by within a little while of each 
other, and neither stopped for the girls, although 
they beckoned and called. 

“ Em afraid we shall have to walk,” said Kate, 
245 


246 The Story of Kate 

“ for the conductors don’t seem to see us in the 
fog, and yet we are standing right under the 
electric light.” 

“ I know that first conductor heard us,” said Rose 
May, indignantly. 

A bulky form emerged from the gloom across the 
street, and came into the light. 

“ It’s a policeman,” said Kate. “ I’m going to 
ask him to make the next car stop.” 

The officer proved to be very friendly and obliging, 
and was interested to hear they were going to the 
hospital. He had a roly-poly look and a laugii like 
a baby’s, and as they waited for the car he told them 
he hated a fog, that it gave him the shivers, and that 
he’d like to belong to the day park-police. Kate 
used to see him often on the street after that, and 
would wonder what use such a roly-poly could be 
in time of trouble. He stopped the next car, and 
when the conductor stepped down to help the two 
girls on, he gave that individual a genial poke in 
the ribs with his club, and as the bell rang and the 
car started on, they caught the last echoes of his 
chuckling laugh. 


A Midnight Errand 


247 


“ It’s just like a gurgle,” commented Kate. 

They found the big iron gates of the hospital 
shut and locked. The outlines of the building were 
not discernible in the fog, and the faint lights in 
the various windows seemed suspended in the air. 
A large iron lantern hung above the gate, however, 
and enabled them to see the bell-handle at once. 

Kate pulled it, and before the echo of the bell 
in the hall of the building had died away, the gates 
swung open at the touch of a button within. A 
young man in uniform came leisurely down the 
steps. 

“ Another accident ? ” he called out. 

“ No,” answered Kate, shortly, thinking she never 
should like a young man who took an accident so 
unconcernedly. “ We want to see Miss Wilson, 
one of the nurses.” 

“ Can’t see her. She’s off duty to-night. Guess 
you’ll have to be disappointed, unless you go to 
the nurses’ house and rouse them up there,” he 
answered. “ Anything I can do?” 

“ I have to see a patient who is in Miss Wilson’s 
ward, and now I don’t know what to do-. I don’t 


248 


The Story of Kate 


suppose you could let me run up to see my friend 
for just a minute ?” suggested Kate. 

“ Well, I guess not,” said the young man, “ unless 
I want to lose my job. But I tell you what I can 
do. I can call Miss Taylor, the night nurse, down, 
and you can talk to her.” 

“ You could give her the message for Cynthy,” 
put in Rose May. 

“ Why, of course,” assented Kate, soberly, her 
high spirits dashed by disappointment in not being 
able to see Cynthy. 

They accompanied the young man up the walk to 
the office, and there they sat down to wait for the 
nurse, whom the young man summoned by touching 
an electric button. While they waited, he talked to 
Rose May, whom he thought an exceedingly pretty 
girl. 

The nurse came in a little while. She had been 
busy with a patient. She was as bright-eyed and 
cheerful, and exchanged jokes with the night-clerk, 
as if staying up until all hours, as Kate’s mother 
would have expressed it, were a pleasure and not a 
duty. Kate drew her aside, and told her why she 


A Midnight Errand 249 

had come, and the nurse nodded, and gave her hand 
an impulsive squeeze. 

“ I believe that’s just it. Did you tell the doctor 
she was away from home? Don’t you know the 
soldiers sometimes die of homesickness, — nostalgia, 
we call it ? I have been an army nurse, and I know. 
But these young nurses don’t know their business 
half the time. A patient’s got to be cheered up 
when he’s low. You come right up-stairs with me.” 

“ But he said I couldn’t,” said Kate, with a glance 
toward the young man, who leant against the coun- 
ter talking to Rose May. 

“ Oh, pshaw,” said the nurse, “ he’s putting on 
airs. I guess we nurses are allowed to use common 
sense.” 

Rose May got up to go with them, but the nurse 
shook her head. 

“ You’d better not both come up.” 

So Rose May was obliged to resign herself to 
a conversation with the night-clerk, and she was so 
sleepy she could scarcely keep her eyes open. 

“ The elevator doesn’t run this late,” said the 
nurse, leading the way up two flights of stairs to 


250 The Story of Kate 

the ward where Cynthy was. As they went through 
one dim, quiet corner a long-drawn wail made Kate 
jump, and the nurse laughed at her fright. 

“ That’s a little nigger baby. It’s mother is dead, 
and we nurses take turns taking care of it. One of 
the nurses has it in there with her to-night. It’s a 
great pet. Sometime I’ll show it to you. It's the 
cunningest little thing, real pinky-black,” she ex- 
plained. “ We named it Lafayette Washington 
Jones.” 

There was something so jolly about all this that 
Kate felt she would like to be a nurse were it not 
for her painting. 

They had reached Cynthy’s room. The nurse 
opened the door softly and went in, motioning Kate 
to remain behind. In a moment she returned. “ It’s 
all right,” she said, “ she isn’t asleep.” 

Kate went in alone. The light from the hall 
enabled her to distinguish the dark head on the 
pillow, and in another second she looked down into 
Cynthy’s wide, homesick eyes. 

“ Oh, Cynthy,” she cried, with a little wail of 
sympathy, “ it’s all my fault. I made you put on 


A Midnight Errand 251 

stockings, and wrote to your father to make you 
come, and now you’re dying. But you’ll get well 
when I tell you that you can go back to Green 
Hollow. Yes, you can, Cynthy, just as soon as you 
get strong.” 

Still Cynthy did not move nor speak, and Kate’s 
heart almost stopped beating with the fear that her 
knowledge of the girl’s homesickness had come too 
late. She sat down on the edge of the bed and 
bent over her, and put her hand gently on her cheek. 
It was warm and wet with fast-flowing tears. 

“ Oh, Cynthy dear,” cried Kate, putting her own 
face to the other’s wet cheek, “ it’s all right now, 
isn’t it? And you’re going to get well.” 

For answer, a pair of eager arms went tight 
around her neck. It was some time before either 
of them spoke. Then Cynthy spoke, not in the 
sullen tone she had used lately, but in her old soft, 
drawling way. 

“ I ’low as I’d like to be back in Green Hollow 
with pa.” 

“ I wrote to your father to-night,” answered Kate. 
In the dim light she could just see the smile on 


252 The Story of Kate 

Cynthy’s face. Kate was not at all given to kiss- 
ing, and having already kissed her friend once, she 
did not do so again, but although she stood up to 
go, she lingered, feeling most affectionate. 

“ Well, good night,” she said, finally, in quite a 
businesslike tone; “go to sleep.” 

The nurse was not anywhere around, and, after 
waiting a few minutes in vain, Kate decided she was 
busy in one of the rooms, and fled like a slim sprite 
down the silent corridors and flights of stairs. 

The young clerk was still talking with Rose May, 
who was longing to yawn, and heroically biting her 
lip to keep from doing so, for she felt that he was 
very polite to try to entertain her during her friend’s 
absence. But as she told Kate afterward, it was 
strange she should feel like yawning when he talked 
of nothing but terrible accidents he had been to 
when he was driving the ambulance. 

“ And when I didn’t yawn, I kept saying the 
multiplication table over to myself so as not to 
understand what he was saying,” she added. 

It was after midnight, and the cars by which they 
came had stopped running. But the clerk told them 


A Midnight Errand 


^53 


how to take a car two blocks away, and then transfer 
to another line which would bring them nearly home. 

As they stepped out the front door, they heard the 
clanging of the ambulance bell, and the big iron gates 
flew open to let the wagon come in. 

Kate and Rose May, seized with terror of what 
they might see if they lingered, fled down the steps, 
and rushed out through the gates into the street. 

“We’d better walk home,” said Kate, after they 
had stood still several moments staring about them ; 
“ I have forgotten which way he said, and we do 
know our way home from here if we walk.” 

It seemed to them they would never get home. 
Only once did they pass any one, and then they ran 
until they were breathless, so extreme was their 
panic for fear the man was drunk. 

“ I wish we could meet that little fat policeman,” 
said Rose May. “ I’m sure he’d take us home if 
we asked him to.” 

At last they turned into the little alley, and once 
more breathed freely. “ We haven’t been so scared 
since the night Chung came with John,” Kate re- 
marked, as they toiled up the stable stairs to the loft. 


2 54 


The Story of Kate 


To their delight the embers of the fire still glowed, 
and soon Kate had stirred up a bright blaze and put 
on a log. 

r ‘ You get undressed first,” she said, “ for you’re 
much more tired than I, and I’ll get us some lunch.” 

So they had tea, which was very weak, but very 
warm, and bread and orange marmalade, and then 
they went to sleep, Rose May with her arm about 
Kate, for she felt afraid, although she knew there 
was nothing for her to fear. 

“ I wish I was brave like you, Kate,” she mur- 
mured, drowsily, and in another moment was asleep. 

That morning Cynthy greeted her nurse with a 
shy smile, and Miss Wilson was much mystified until 
she happened to hear later of the midnight visit that 
had been paid her patient. 

When Kate told Rose May at supper that next 
day how Cynthy had dressed in the afternoon, and 
sat in a rocking-chair weaving her basket, Rose 
May shook her head. 

“ I guess between you and me,” said she, “ that 
obstinacy has been the matter with her, just as 
much as homesickness.” 


A Midnight Errand 


2 55 


The day after a tall, rough-looking man, dark- 
bearded and stern, asked at the hospital for Cynthy 
Higgins, and when he explained who he was he 
was shown to her room. 

She was dressed and waiting for Kate to come, 
when a shadow darkened the doorway, and she 
turned her grave eyes, now such deep wells of con- 
tentment. She saw who it was, and fled to his 
arms. 

“ Oh, pa/’ she said, and sobbed out all the grief 
that had been hers, all the longing, on his breast. 

Thus ended Cynthy ’s visit to San Francisco, and 
Kate never could bear to speak of it afterward. She 
felt that the whole miserable episode was due to her. 

“ Mother always said I was too masterful, and 
wanting people to do my way,” she confided to Rose 
May, “ and I guess it’s one of my worst faults. If 
Cynthy hadn’t got well, I suppose I’d have been 
the same as a criminal, for I’d been responsible.” 


CHAPTER XV. 

Mr. Hitchcock and Rose May 

Neither of the two girls went home at Christ- 
mas-time, for Rose May could not take a vacation 
without losing her place, and Kate would not leave 
her. Mrs. Whitney, thrifty to the point of self- 
sacrifice, thought the girls had better stay and save 
railroad fare. 

All during the holidays Kate worked steadily. 
The League was closed for two weeks, and so she 
studied at home, and paid the little Italian children 
to pose for her. She also joined an out-of-doors 
sketch club which met three times a week at different 
places along the docks and shipyards. She had 
exchanged sketches with most of the members, and 
pinned those she received about the loft, which began 
to take on more than ever the appearance of a studio. 

They went to an exhibition of Mr. Hitchcock’s at 
256 


Mr. Hitchcock and Rose May 257 

his studio, and met a great many fashionable people, 
and a very charming woman who poured tea and 
said she would come and call on the girls, when 
their host told her what particular friends they were 
of his. Rose May left work that afternoon, and did 
not mind when the time was deducted from her 
wages at the end of the week. She had enjoyed 
herself so much. - 

Kate saw little of the crowd, and afterward, to 
Rose May’s vexation, could not talk over how the 
people looked. She wandered from picture to pic- 
ture, in a dreamy mood, realising to the full 
the masterly strokes, the splendid understanding of 
colour. She recalled that afternoon so long ago 
when she had been a student at Berkeley, and had 
come to an exhibition of Mr. Hitchcock’s, and been 
deeply stirred, so that study was hard that evening. 
Now, she never looked into a text-book, and she 
was filled with wonder at the change which had 
come into her life. Her good fortune dated 
from her going to Green Hollow, and she thought 
with certain awe of all she would have missed had 
she been selfish and insisted upon taking the money 


258 The Story of Kate 

her father could so ill afford, and going up to col- 
lege. The pictures which attracted her most were 
two of the Klondike. The first was called “ A White 
World,” and it was a sunset over fields of snow. 
And so wonderfully was it painted that it seemed as 
though those exquisite reflections of rose and gold, 
green and violet, were but the play of an even then 
vanishing light, soon to be withdrawn and leave the 
world colder and more fearfully white than ever. It 
thrilled Kate to look at it, and she could have cried 
when she learned it was sold, although she was 
perfectly well aware it was a picture she never could 
afford to possess. 

The other picture was a dreary one of wolves, 
and as she looked at it, she thought how Mr. Hitch- 
cock must have hated them, they looked so fierce and 
yet so cowardly. And there was the canvas she 
remembered, the return of the sheep at sunset, 
the illumined dust, the quiet pool in the foreground, 
the old shepherd, and his eager dog. 

She clasped her hands tightly together as she 
stood in front of it, her wide gray eyes so wistful 
that Mr. Hitchcock spoke to her. 


Mr. Hitchcock and Rose May 259 

“ Is that your favourite ?” 

She only smiled in reply. Sometime when there 
were not so many people around she would recall the 
incident to his mind, and the wonderful night when 
the rains came after the long drought, and he had 
been their guest over night, and had mentioned the 
colour of the dust at sunset, and told them of the 
Klondike. 

The exhibition was on a Saturday afternoon, and 
so Phil Wilson came and stared about, not caring 
very much about pictures anyway. He was shocked 
to hear Cynthy had been ill and had gone home. 
He, himself, could not go home Christmas, because 
he had the milk-route to drive, and so he was coming 
over to the city when he could, for his good times. 
After the exhibition he and the two girls took a 
long street-car ride, for it was so pleasant they could 
ride on the open car. Then they strolled through 
Chinatown, which was in the heart of the business 
portion of the city, and at last had supper in the 
loft. 

Phil tied one of the girls’ aprons around his big 
waist, and showed them how to scramble eggs. 


26 o 


The Story of Kate 


“ I feel as if I were eating chips, Senator,” said 
Kate, when he had helped them out of the long- 
handled frying-pan. 

Phil laughed. They tasted good to him, and he 
ate the chief portion of the dish. 

“ I’m coming over to take you two girls to the 
matinee some afternoon, for I’m making money out 
of the milk-route. Too bad Cynthy got so home- 
sick,” he said, when he bade them good night. 

“ Poor Phil,” said Kate, after he had gone, “ I 
guess he isn’t making any too much money. His 
clothes look so shabby, and he has been without 
an overcoat all winter. Father always said it took 
an awfully long time for lawyers to get a start. 
And he’s just a freshm'an. But there’s one thing, 
he can’t starve driving a milk-wagon, and he looks 
bigger and better than I ever saw him.” 

So the vacation slipped away, and the new year 
came. 

Cynthy wrote of Green Hollow. The new 
teacher was a young man, and he was not satis- 
factory, and people ’lowed Mary Johnson could have 
the school next year if she wanted it. Sometimes 


Mr. Hitchcock and Rose May 261 

the two girls shed tears over these letters, which 
made them so homesick. One day Kate had a letter 
from her mother, telling her that Pietro and his 
pretty young wife had a little baby in their tiny 
log home. And Pietro had insisted that the priest 
should christen the dark-skinned baby Colonel Whit- 
ney, so that the baby’s name in full was Colonel 
Whitney Pietro Mendez. This won the heart of 
Colonel Whitney, senior, and he quite gave up his 
suspicions of Pietro’s honesty. As for Chung, he 
was happier than any one over the new baby, and 
went to see it every day. This letter made Kate 
quite wild to go home. 

Mr. Hitchcock came to see them Sunday after- 
noons, and once when they came home they found 
the card of the lady they had met at the tea. But 
they were both diffident, and never returned the 
call, a fact of which they were always ashamed 
afterward. 

Rose May still cherished her romance. It 
seemed to her a fitting and beautiful ending that 
Kate should marry Mr. Hitchcock. But often she 
would meet Mr. Hitchcock’s eyes fixed on her in 


262 


The Story of Kate 


a gaze so grave and sweet and tender that little Rose 
May would feel her heart flutter and beat with an 
emotion she did not understand. But she would 
tell herself that when he had married Kate, she, 
Rose May, would regard him more calmly, and 
forget these strange feelings that had come to her 
so lately. She was thinking of all this one gloomy 
afternoon in March, for March can be disagreeable 
even in California, as she sat in the workroom with 
her chair drawn close to the window. The window 
was next to an alley, and the dingy office building 
opposite shut out any glimpse of the sky. It was 
nearly five o’clock, and so dark that the rest of the 
girls had turned on the gas in order to see. Their 
chatter made a continual buzz, which fell unheeded on 
her ears, as her busy needle flashed in and out of 
the tan-coloured chiffon she was tucking. Rose 
May did not think of her own affairs these days, 
for fear she would become discontented and so 
forget how good God had been to her in letting 
her find a position so readily in such a crowded city. 
But in her heart she longed for the flower-embow- 
ered cottage in Green Hollow. 


Mr. Hitchcock and Rose May 263 

One of the salesgirls opened the door and put 
her head in. 

“ Gentleman here wants to see Miss Smith,” she 
announced. “ Says he’ll wait. No hurry.” 

Rose May addressed the forewoman of the work- 
room timidly. “ I guess I’d better go out to see 
who it is.” She had an idea it might be some one 
from home, perhaps Mr. Love or Mr. Higgins, 
called to the city on business. 

“ Go along,” said the sharp, kindly forewoman; 
“ you’re not as much of a dawdler as some of the 
rest, and I feel like favouring you.” Some of the 
younger girls, who knew they were the people thus 
referred to, giggled, and the speaker, as she bit off 
a piece of thread, laughed, too, good-naturedly. 
“ You might match this petunia with a quarter of a 
yard of velvet at the silk counter while you’re out, 
Miss Smith,” she added. 

The big millinery department, with its hats and 
glass-cases, and the electric lights turned on, was 
most cheerful, after the gloomy room from which 
she had come. For a moment she saw no one 
except two or three customers trying on hats in 


264 The Story of Kate 

front of the long mirrors, and the salesgirls, and she 
felt disappointed, and jumped to the conclusion that 
whoever it was had not thought it worth while to 
wait. Then she noticed a gentleman reading a 
paper seated just within the cloak-room. It was 
Mr. Hitchcock, and she crossed over to him. 

“Did you want to see me?” she asked, much 
surprised. 

“ I’m sure I did,” he answered, smiling, rising to 
shake hands, “ but I’m in no hurry. I’ll wait here 
until you’re ready to go home.” 

“ It will be nearly an hour,” she said, anxiously. 
“ Perhaps you’ll get tired.” 

“Not a bit of it,” he answered. “ You go back 
to your work, and I’ll wait here.” 

His smile put her at ease, and she went away to 
match the silk, full of curiosity. The artist watched 
her. She looked pale for Rose May, and she had 
on a black apron, which was not at all pretty, and 
threads clung to her dress. And he had noticed how 
her delicate finger-tips were roughened with con- 
tinual work. 

When she came up-stairs again, with the velvet 


Mr. Hitchcock and Rose May 265 

she had gone to match hanging over her arm, the 
colour of a rich petunia, she smiled as she went on 
to the workroom,. His answering nod and smile 
made her heart beat warmly, and she felt suddenly 
comforted and reconciled to San Francisco, and told 
herself that after all Green Hollow would be lonely 
without Kate and him. She couldn’t help speculat- 
ing curiously about what he might have to say, and, 
remembering Kate’s wish to go to Paris some time, 
she jumped to the wild and delightful conclusion 
that the artist had somehow arranged to have her 
go. Fairy stories having begun for Kate, there 
was no reason why they shouldn’t continue. 

“ But how I should miss her,” murmured Rose 
May, with a sigh. 

At last the big gong in the store clanged six, the 
hour for dismissal, and she hurried to fold away 
her work and put on her things to join Mr. Hitch- 
cock. 

The street was crowded and bright, and so filled 
with busy bustle that they could not hear each other 
until they turned off from the main thoroughfare. 


266 The Story of Kate 

“ Will it be too much for you if we walk home? ” 
he asked. 

“ Oh, no,” she answered, “ I often do. I like the 
fresh air, after being shut in all day.” 

They talked for some time of various, unimpor- 
tant things, and all the time she wondered what 
he wanted to see her for. 

“ Rose May,” he said, at last, in a tone of voice 
which told her she was to know, “ I want your 
advice. Do you think a girl as young as Kate 
could ever learn to love a man of my age? ” 

“ I don’t think you are old,” she answered, loy- 
ally, “ you can’t be more than forty.” 

His mouth beneath the ruddy beard twitched. 
“ I’m not that yet,” he said. “ You mustn’t be 
so unflattering as to make me out three years older 
than I am. I’m become as sensitive as a woman 
about my age, Rose May.” 

She hung her head, quite ashamed of her stupidity. 
“ It’s nice not to be as old as you look,” she said, and 
then knew she had expressed just what she hadn’t 
intended to. 

“ But I don’t feel young,” he rejoined, with a 


Mr. Hitchcock and Rose May 267 

sigh. “ Sometimes I think I’ve worked too hard, 
and my success seems empty with no one to share 
it. I have often thought I would not sell my best 
pictures if I had a home in which to hang them, 
and a wife to love them because they were my work. 
Then when I lost my dear friend up north that 
horrible winter and almost went blind myself, I 
thought I never should feel young again. But last 
spring I went to Green Hollow, and there I met two 
young girls. At first they amused and interested 
me as children, but in the end I knew I loved one 
of them. It was that which sent me abroad ; it was 
that which drew me home again.” 

“ Yes,” said Rose May, in a voice a little above 
a whisper. 

“ So I know I cannot seem young in her eyes, and 
am perhaps a dull old fellow to her, who is so 
young and full of life. Do you think I should ask 
her to marry me? What do you think, Rose May ? ” 

It was some moments before she replied. Sup- 
pose she had misread her friend and Kate did not 
really love him. Kate was so wild, so like a witch 
at times, and ready to flout all romantic notions on 


268 


The Story of Kate 


Rose May’s part, so free and ever eager for a 
change. But on the other hand she recalled Kate’s 
reverence for the artist, her delig'ht when he asked 
her to read to him and thus save his eyes, while she, 
Rose May, — and here Rose May felt a twinge of 
shame, — had been so selfish as not to do so. Just 
as she reached the conclusion that Kate did care 
after all, and was about to speak, another doubt 
assailed her. Suppose after they were married, 
Mr. Hitchcock should wish Kate not to paint, but 
just to read to him. Rose May’s mother had always 
said the best of men were selfish. But not he, oh, no, 
not Mr. Hitchcock, cried her loyal heart. 

They were passing a drug-store, and the light 
from the window fell full upon her sweet face as 
she looked up at him, her blue eyes tender and shin- 
ing and solemn. 

“ I should advise you to ask her,” she said. 

When he spoke again after a long silence between 
them, it was to call her attention to the early evening 
star. 

Rose May had an instinctive feeling that he would 


Mr. Hitchcock and Rose May 269 

come in to supper if invited, and so she stopped at 
the corner grocery and made a few purchases. 

Kate had been home from the League since four 
o’clock, and had been reading her eyes out, she told 
them, as she greeted them gaily. 

“ Good luck is coming our way,” she said ; “ when 
I came home I found a cat in the loft. I wonder how 
it could have gotten in.” She drew a shawl off a 
pillow in the corner of the lounge, and showed a 
thin gray and white striped kitten curled up asleep. 
“ What puzzles me is how such a tiny kitten can give 
such a loud purr.” 

Rose May knelt down, with a little cry of delight, 
to stroke it. “ That’s what we’ve needed to make 
it seem like home, haven’t we? Did you give it 
warm milk ? ” 

Of course Mr. Hitchcock must have his old joke 
about hating a cat, and pushed it away when Rose 
May would have made him hold it. 

“ No sick cat for me,” he said. 

It was the first time he had ever taken a meal 
with them, and the two girls were glad it turned out 
to be such a good supper. They had creamed 


270 


The Story of Kate 


chipped beef, and oranges and bananas sliced, and 
hot chocolate and rolls. 

“ If mother and father and Chung were only 
here,” sighed Kate; “but I wouldn’t want John, 
for he’d kill the new kitten.” 

Rose May kept her eyes down a good deal of 
the time. She felt they were shining with her secret, 
and that Kate might suspect something. 

While they washed the dishes, Mr. Hitchcock 
strolled up and down the long room, smoking his 
pipe, and glancing critically at the sketches Kate had 
pinned up. He laughed at her drawings of the 
Italian children, and this so teased her that she tore 
them off the wall and flung them into the fire, and 
faced him, laughing, but with a resentful flash in 
her gray eyes. This so amused him that his own 
big laugh rang out and seemed to' shake the rafters. 

“ How can I make up for my teasing? Would 
you like to go to the theatre this evening? It’s so 
long since I have taken any young ladies to the 
theatre, though, that perhaps I won’t know how to 
act,” he said. 

“ I’m just dying to go to the Chinese theatre,” 


Mr. Hitchcock and Rose May 271 

said Kate. “ I’ve heard the white visitors sit right 
on the stage with the actors, haven’t you ? ” 

“ Then we sha’n’t have to start for over an 
hour,” he said, “ as we can buy our tickets at the 
door.” 

So they sat down to visit in front of the fire, 
Kate with the little kitten in her lap. 

“ Miss Kate,” said the artist, after they had all 
been watching the open fire in a pleasant silence, 
“ this afternoon I asked Rose May if she thought 
it possible a girl as young as you and she are 
could ever learn to care for me, but since I have been 
here this evening, I have thought I was foolish to 
hope for more than the affection I think you both 
have for me as a friend. Is it not so, Rose May ? ” 
She did not answer him. She was pale with 
anxiety. She saw that his words had bewildered 
and frightened Kate, and sudden fear for Mr. Hitch- 
cock’s happiness seized her. 

She quite forgot herself. “ Oh, don’t say no,” 
she cried ; “ he has had so much sorrow because his 
dear friend died, and he has to sell his best pictures 
because he has no home to keep them in, and it will 


272 The Story of Kate 

help you in your art to marry a great artist and — ” 
She broke off breathlessly. 

Kate had risen, and stood quite still, nervous and 
distressed, the kitten held tightly to her breast, and 
it seemed to Rose May that the eyes of the startled 
kitten and Kate’s looked just alike, very big in 
their faces, and gray and amazed. Never had Kate 
felt more embarrassed, and this moment recalled that 
terrible one when Billy Higgins had asked her how 
many s’s were in scissors. What would her mother 
say ? Oh, if she could only fly to her away from 
this awful predicament which had overtaken her. 
What if it should be her duty to marry the artist 
to repay him for his lessons ? 

Yet how strange he was. He was not even 
looking at her, but at Rose May, and with such an 
expression on his face, of mingled grief and sur- 
prise ! 

It came to Kate in a flash, just as she had divined 
that Cynthy was homesick. 

“ It isn’t me,” she cried ; “ it’s you he loves.” 

Mr. Hitchcock rose, as if he didn’t know quite 
what he was doing. 


Mr. Hitchcock and Rose May 273 

“ Yes,” he said, she didn’t understand. It is 
she I love. And I’m such a blunderer she didn’t 
understand. She is so delicate, so young, I didn’t 
know how to tell her of my love without startling 
her. No wonder she thought I meant you.” 

“ Oh, Rose May ! ” said Kate, reproachfully, think- 
ing it would be hard to forgive her friend for the 
fright she had had. 

It was no wonder that Rose May felt accused 
before them both, and that she should put her 
hands over her face and begin to cry. 

“ It was my fault,” said Mr. Hitchcock, with 
bitter sadness, reproaching himself for her distress; 
“ it was of you she was thinking all the time. She 
cares nothing for me.” 

Rose May shook her head in dissent. 

“ But if you had cared for me, my darling,” said 
poor Mr. Hitchcock, “ you wouldn’t have wanted 
me to marry Kate.” 

There was a silence. Then Rose May took away 
her hands and smiled through her tears. “ If I 
hadn’t loved you, I wouldn’t have wanted you to 
marry Kate, would I ? ” 


274 


The Story of Kate 


“ Oh, little Rose May,” he said, “ little Rose 
May,” and he looked at her in a way that made 
Kate feel she ought to run away and leave the two 
together. 

So she said, in a businesslike tone, “If we’re 
going to the theatre, I’ll have to change my slippers 
and put on my shoes,” and walked away with her 
head up, and her severest school-teacher air. But 
when she was in the bedroom, her expression 
changed, and she laid her cheek softly to the little 
kitten in her arms, and her heart filled with gladness 
for Rose May. 

She did not light the candles and quite forgot 
to remove her slippers, but stood at the window 
looking out upon the wonderful lights of the city and 
the silver moon sailing far above. She felt hushed 
and awed. An entirely new and unthought-of 
experience had come into her life. Rose May 
seemed suddenly far remloved from her, and Kate 
was seized with loneliness, and the tears ran down 
her face. Then she brushed them away, for she 
remembered the great surprise she and her father 
had planned for her mother in the summer. The 


Mr. Hitchcock and Rose May 275 

crops had been profitable, and an unusual price had 
been paid for cattle, so that Colonel Whitney had 
laid aside a sum to send his wife home to see her 
folk in Vermont. And Kate was to go with her. 
As for himself, the Colonel was going as far as 
Chicago with them to attend a meeting of the 
G. A. R. He was as jubilant over the prospect as 
if he were a boy again. 

Alfonso’s father, starting out this pleasant even- 
ing, paused to give a few strains of the hand-organ 
under the young ladies’ windows. Kate listened, 
smiling, to the humble serenade. The music went 
in with her happy thoughts. 

“ All my dreams are coming true,” she said to 
herself. 

Down in Green Hollow the evening was so mild 
that Cynthy sat barefooted on the back porch, the 
pail of water she had gone for beside her, and 
Bobby snuggled up asleep in her arms. She was 
looking up at the moon shining on the mountain. 
Her face was content, although she was thinking of 
the friends she missed, content because she had an 
abiding faith that some day they would come back 


276 The Story of Kate 

to Green Hollow, Mr. Hitchcock and Phil and Rose 
May, and the most welcome, the most-longed-for 
friend of all, Kate. 


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2 


L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY'S 


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BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 


3 


’Tilda Jane. By Marshall Saunders, author of 

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4 


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BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 5 

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as well as scrupulous accuracy and religious sentiment. 

Three Little Crackers. From Down in Dixie. 
By Will Allen Dromgoole, author of “The Farrier’s 
Dog,” etc., with fifty text and full-page illustrations, by E. 
B. Barry. 

One vol., library i2mo, cloth, decorative cover . $1.00 

A fascinating story for boys and girls, of a family of Ala- 
bama children who move to Florida and grow up in the South. 

Prince Harold, a Fairy Story. By l. f. 

Brown. With 60 full-page illustrations by Vitry. 

One vol., large i2mo, cloth, decorative cover . . $1.50 

A delightful fairy tale for children, dealing with the life of 
a young Prince, who, aided by the Moon Spirit, discovers, 
after many adventures, a beautiful girl whom he makes his 
Princess. 

The Fairy Folk of Blue Hill : A Story of 

Folk-Lore. By Lily F. Wesselhoeft, author of 
“ Sparrow the Tramp,” etc., with fifty-five illustrations from 
original drawings by Alfred C. Eastman. 

One vol., library i2mo, cloth, decorative cover . $1.00 

A new volume by Mrs. Wesselhoeft, well known as one of 
our best writers for the young, and who has made a host of 
friends among the young people. 


6 


L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY’S 


Larry Hudson’s Ambition. By James Otis, 

author of “ Toby Tyler,” etc. Illustrated by Eliot Keen. 
One vol., library i2mo, cloth, decorative cover . $1.25 

James Otis, who has delighted the juvenile public with so 
many popular stories, has written the story of the rise of the 
bootblack Larry. Larry is not only capable of holding his 
own and coming out with flying colors in the amusing adven- 
tures wherein he befriends the family of good Deacon Doak ; 
he also has the signal ability to know what he wants and to 
understand that hard work is necessary to win. 

The Adventures of a Boy Reporter in 

the Philippines. By Harry Steele Morrison, au- 
thor of “ A Yankee Boy’s Success.” 

One vol , large i2mo, cloth, illustrated . . . $1.25 

A true story of the courage and enterprise of an American 
lad. It is filled with healthy interest, and wjjl tend to stimu- 
late and encourage the proper ambition of the young reader. 

The Young Pearl Divers : a Story of Aus- 
tralian Adventure by Land and by Sea. By Lieut. 
H. Phelps Whitmarsh, author of “ The Mysterious 
Voyage of the Daphne ,” etc. Illustrated with twelve full- 
page half-tones by H. Burgess. 

One vol., large 1 2mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.00 

This is a splendid story for boys, by an author who writes in 
vigorous and interesting language of scenes and adventures 
with which he is personally acquainted. 

The Voyage of the Avenger : in the days 

of the Dashing Drake. By Henry St. John. With 
twenty -five full-page illustrations by Paul Hardy. 

One vol., tall i2mo, cloth decorative, gilt top . . $1.50 

A book of adventure, the scene of which is laid in that stir- 
ring period of colonial extension when England’s famous naval 
heroes encountered the ships of Spain, both at home and in 
the West Indies. 


BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 


7 


THE WOODRANGER TALES 

By G. WALDO BROWNE 

The Woodranger. 

The Young Gunbearer. 

The Hero of the Hills. 

Each i vol., large i2mo, cloth, decorative cover, illus- 
trated, per volume $1.00 

Three vols., boxed, per set $3.00 

“The Woodranger Tales,” like the “Pathfinder Tales” of 
J. Fenimore Cooper, combine historical information relating 
to early pioneer days in America with interesting adventures 
in the backwoods. Although the same characters are con- 
tinued throughout the series, each book is complete in itself, 
and while based strictly on historical facts, is an interesting 
and exciting tale of adventure which will delight all boys and 
be by no means unwelcome to their elders. 

*t? 

Songs and Rhymes for the Little Ones. 

Compiled by Mary Whitney Morrison (Jenny Wallis). 
New edition, with an introduction by Mrs. A. D. T. Whit- 
ney and eight illustrations. 

One vol., large i2mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.00 

No better description of this admirable book can be given 
than Mrs. Whitney’s happy introduction : 

“ One might almost as well offer June roses with the 
assurance of their sweetness, as to present this lovely little 
gathering of verse, which announces itself, like them, by its 
deliciousness. Yet, as Mrs. Morrison’s charming volume has 
long been a delight to me, I am only too happy to link my 
name with its new and enriched form in this slight way, and 
simply declare that it is to me the most bewitching book of 
songs for little people that I have ever known.” 


8 


Z. C. PAGE AND COMPANY 


The Rosamond Tales. By Cuyler Reynolds. 

With 30 full-page illustrations from original photographs, 
and with a frontispiece from a drawing by Maud 
Humphreys. 

One vol., large i2mo, cloth decorative . . . $1.50 

These are just the bedtime stories that children always ask 
for, but do not always get. Rosamond and Rosalind are the 
hero and heroine of many happy adventures in town and on 
their grandfather’s farm ; and the happy listeners to their story 
will unconsciously absorb a vast amount of interesting knowl- 
edge of birds, animals, and flowers, just the things about which 
the curiosity of children from four to twelve years old is most 
insatiable. The book will be a boon to tired mothers, and a 
delight to wide-awake children. 


Old Father Gander ; or, the better-half of 
Mother Goose. Rhymes, Chimes, and Jingles 
scratched from his own goose-quill for American Goslings, 
and illustrated with Impossible Geese. By Walter Scott 
Howard. 

One vol., oblong quarto, cloth decorative . . $2.00 

The illustrations are so striking and fascinating that the 
book will appeal to young people aside from the fact even of 
the charm and humor of the songs and rhymes. There are 
thirty-two full-page plates, of which one-half are in color. 


Divine and Moral Songs for Children. 

By the Rev. Isaac Watts, D. D. Delightfully illustrated 
in color by Mrs. Gaston. 

Small quarto, decorative $1.00 

Did the Rev. Isaac Watts ever dream of finding himself 
tricked out in such quaint array? This is a most enticing 
little volume, where Greenawayish babies gaze with edified 
gravity upon “ How doth the little busy bee,” or are lulled to 
sleep by the sweetest of cradle hymns, or let Greenaway angels 
guard their slumbering heads. It is a unique idea in the way 
of a child’s gift book. 


THE LITTLE COUSIN SERIES 

By MARY HAZELTON WADE 

FIRST SERIES 

These are the most interesting and delightful accounts 
possible of child-life in other lands, filled with quaint say- 
ings, doings, and adventures. The “ Little Japanese 
Cousin,” with her toys in her wide sleeve and her tiny bag of 
paper handkerchiefs ; the “ Little Brown Cousin,” in whose 
home the leaves of the breadfruit-tree serve for plates and 
the halves of the cocoanut shells for cups ; the “ Little 
Indian Cousin,” who lives the free life of the forest, and the 
“ Little Russian Cousin,” who dwells by the wintry Neva, 
are truly fascinating characters to the little cousins who 
will read about them. 

Four volumes, as follows : 

Our Little Japanese Cousin 
Our Little Brown Cousin 
Our Little Indian Cousin 
Our Little Russian Cousin 

Each i vol., i2mo, cloth decorative, with 6 full-page 

illustrations in tints, by L. J. Bridgman. 

Price, per volume . . $0.50 net (postage extra) 

Price, per set, 4 vols., boxed . 2.00 net (postage extra) 

“Juveniles will get a whole world of pleasure and instruction 
out of Mary Hazelton Wade’s Little Cousin Series. . . . Pleas- 
ing narratives give pictures of the little folk in the far-away lands 
in their duties and pleasures, showing their odd ways of playing, 
studying, their queer homes, clothes, and playthings. . • • The 
style of the stories is all that can be desired for entertainment, 
the author describing things in a very real and delightful 
fashion.” — Detroit News - Tribune. 


THE LITTLE COUSIN SERIES 

By MARY HAZELTON WADE 

SECOND SERIES 

The great success and prompt appreciation which this 
charming little series met last season has led to its continua- 
tion this year with a new set of child characters from other 
lands, each as original and delightful as the little foreign 
cousins with whom the little cousins at home became ac- 
quainted in last season’s series. 

Six volumes, as follows : 

Our Little Cuban Cousin 
Our Little Hawaiian Cousin 
Our Little Eskimo Cousin 
Our Little Philippine Cousin 
Our Little Porto Rican Cousin 
Our Little African Cousin 

Each i vol., i2mo, cloth decorative, with 6 full-page 

illustrations in tints by L. J. Bridgman. 

Price, per volume . . . $0.50 net (postage extra) 

Price, per set, 6 vols., boxed . 3.00 net (postage extra) 

“ Boys and girls, reading the tales of these little cousins in 
different parts of the world, will gain considerable knowledge of 
geography and the queer customs that are followed among 
strange people.” — Chicago Evening Post. 

“ Not only are the books interesting, but they are entertain- 
ingly instructive as well, and when entertainment can sugar-coat 
instruction, the book is one usually well worth placing in the 
hands of those to whom the knowledge will be useful.” — Utica 
Observer. 

“To many youthful minds this little series of books may open 
up the possibilities of a foreign world to which they had been 
total strangers. And interest in this wider sphere, the beyond 
and awayness, may bear rich fruit in the future.” — N. Y. Com - 
mercial Advertiser. 


COSY CORNER SERIES 


1 1 is the intention of the publishers that this series shall 
contain only the very highest and purest literature, — 
stories that shall not only appeal to the children them- 
selves, but be appreciated by all those who feel with 
them in their joys and sorrows, — stories that shall be 
most particularly adapted for reading aloud in the 
family circle. 

The numerous illustrations in each book are by well- 
known artists, and each volume has a separate attract- 
ive cover design. 

Each, i vol., i6mo, cloth $0.50 

By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON 

The Little Colonel. 

The scene of this story is laid in Kentucky. Its 
heroine is a small girl, who is known as the Little 
Colonel, on account of her fancied resemblance to an 
old-school Southern gentleman, whose fine estate and 
old family are famous in the region. This old Colonel 
proves to be the grandfather of the child. 

The Giant Scissors. 

This is the story of Joyce and of her adventures in 
France, — the wonderful house with the gate of The 
Giant Scissors, Jules, her little playmate, Sister Denisa, 
the cruel Brossard, and her dear Aunt Kate. Joyce is 
a great friend of the Little Colonel, and in later volumes 
shares with her the delightful experiences of the “ House 
Party ” and the “ Holidays.” 


2 


L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY’S 


By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON (Continued) 

Two Little Knights of Kentucky, 

Who Were the Little Colonel’s Neighbors. 

In this volume the Little Colonel returns to us like an 
old friend, but with added grace and charm. She is 
not, however, the central figure of the story, that place 
being taken by the “ two little knights,” Malcolm and 
Keith, little Southern aristocrats, whose chivalrous na- 
tures lead them through a series of interesting adven- 
tures. 

Cicely and Other Stories for Girls. 

The readers of Mrs. Johnston’s charming juveniles 
will be glad to learn of the issue of this volume for 
young people, written in the author’s sympathetic and 
entertaining manner. 

Big Brother. 

A story of two boys. The devotion and care of 
Steven, himself a small boy, for his baby brother, is the 
theme of the simple tale, the pathos and beauty of 
which has appealed to so many thousands. 

Ole Mammy’s Torment. 

“Ole Mammy’s Torment” has been fitly called “a 
classic of Southern life.” It relates the haps and mis- 
haps of a small negro lad, and tells how he was led by 
love and kindness to a knowledge of the right. 

The Story of Dago. 

In this story Mrs. Johnston relates the story of Dago, 
a pet monkey, owned jointly by two brothers. Dago 
tells his own story, and the account of his haps and mis- 
haps is both interesting and amusing. 


COSY CORNER SERIES 


3 


By EDITH ROBINSON 

A Little Puritan’s First Christmas : 

A Story of Colonial Times in Boston. 

A story of Colonial times in Boston, telling how 
Christmas was invented by Betty Sewall, a typical child 
of the Puritans, aided by her “ unregenerate ” brother, 
Sam. 

A Little Daughter of Liberty. 

The author’s motive for this story is well indicated 
by a quotation from her introduction, as follows : 

“ One ride is memorable in the early history of the 
American Revolution, the well-known ride of Paul 
Revere. Equally deserving of commendation is another 
ride, — untold in verse or story, its records preserved 
only in family papers or shadowy legend, the ride of 
Anthony Severn was no less historic in its action or 
memorable in its consequences.” 

A Loyal Little Haiti. 

A delightful and interesting story of Revolutionary 
days, in which the child heroine, Betsey Schuyler, 
renders important services to George Washington and 
Alexander Hamilton, and in the end becomes the wife of 
the latter. 

A Little Puritan Rebel. 

Like Miss Robinson’s successful story of “ A Loyal 
Little Maid,” this is another historical tale of a real girl, 
during the time when the gallant Sir Harry Vane was 
governor of Massachusetts. 

A Little Puritan Pioneer. 

The scene of this story is laid in the Puritan settle- 
ment at Charlestown. The little girl heroine adds 
another to the list of favorites so well known to the 
young people in “ A Little Puritan Rebel,” etc. 


4 


Z. C. PAGE AND COMPANY’S 


By OUIDA (Louise de la Ramde) 

A Dog of Flanders : a Christmas Story. 

Too well and favorably known to require description. 

The Niirnberg Stove. 

This- beautiful story has never before been published 
at a popular price. 

A Provence Rose. 

A story perfect in sweetness and in grace. 

Findelkind. 

A charming story about a little Swiss herdsman. 

By MISS MULOCK 

The Little Lame Prince. 

A delightful story of a little boy who has many adven- 
tures by means of the magic gifts of his fairy godmother. 

Adventures of a Brownie. 

The story of a 'household elf who torments the cook 
and gardener, but is a constant joy and delight to the 
children who love and trust him. 

His Little Mother. 

Miss Mulock’s short stories for children are a constant 
source of delight to them, and “ His Little Mother,” in 
this new and attractive dress, will be welcomed by hosts 
of youthful readers. 

Little Sunshine’s Holiday. 

An attractive story of a summer outing. “ Little Sun- 
shine ” is another of those beautiful child-characters for 
which Miss Mulock is so justly famous. 


COSY CORNER SERIES 


5 


By JULIANA HORATIA EWING 

Jackanapes. 

A new edition, with new illustrations, of this exquisite 
and touching story, dear alike to young and old. 

Story of a Short Life. 

This beautiful and pathetic story will never grow old. 
It is a part of the world’s literature, and will never die. 

A Great Emergency. 

How a family of children prepared for a great emer- 
gency, and how they acted when the emergency came. 

The Trinity Flower. 

In this little volume are collected three of Mrs. 
Ewing’s best short stories for the young people. 

Madam Liberality. 

From her cradle up Madam Liberality found her 
chief delight in giving. 

By FRANCES MARGARET FOX 

The Little Giant’s Neighbors. 

A charming nature story of a “little giant” whose 
neighbors were the creatures of the field and garden. 

Farmer Brown and the Birds. 

A little story which teaches children that the birds are 
man’s best friends. Miss Fox has an intimate knowl- 
edge of bird life and has written a little book which 
should take rank with “ Black Beauty ” and “ Beautiful 
Joe.” 

Betty of Old Mackinaw. 

A charming story of child-life, appealing especially to 
the little readers who like stories of “ real people.” 


6 


L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY'S 


By WILL ALLEN DROMGQOLE 

The Farrier’s Dog and His Fellow. 

This story, written by the gifted young Southern 
woman, will appeal to all that is best in the natures of 
the many admirers of her graceful and piquant style. 

The Fortunes of the Fellow. 

Those who read and enjoyed the pathos and charm 
of “The Farrier’s Dog and His Fellow” will welcome 
the further account of the “ Adventures of Baydaw and 
the Fellow ” at the home of the kindly smith among the 
Green Hills of Tennessee. 

By FRANCES HODGES WHITE 

Helena’s Wonderworld. 

A delightful tale of the adventures of a little girl in 
the mysterious regions beneath the sea. 

Aunt Nabby’s Children. 

This pretty little story, touched with the simple humo * 
of country life, tells of two children, who, adopted by 
Aunt Nabby, have also won their way into the affections 
of the village squire. 

By CHARLES LEE SLEIGHT 

The Prince of the Pin Elves. 

A fascinating story of the underground adventures of 
a sturdy, reliant American boy among the elves and 
gnomes. 

The Water People. 

A companion volume and in a way a sequel to “ The 
Prince of the Pin Elves,” relating the adventures of 
“ Harry” among the “ water people.” While it has the 
same characters as the previous book, the story is com- 
plete in itself. 


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